About me

---

While I’ve been working with students and families as an independent counselor since 2023, I have spent the entirety of my career in education in a variety of roles. Ever since I was a student growing up in small-town Texas, I’ve seen the impact that education can have. This has pushed me to dedicate myself to ensuring that all students have the same life-changing opportunities that my education provided for me. Having educators who believed in me completely changed the trajectory of my life and I want to provide that experience to others as they strive to find the college home that will most welcome, inspire, and challenge them.

After graduating from college, I joined Teach For America, a program that places teachers in high-need regions. For two years, I taught in one of the poorest schools in the state of Oklahoma. During my tenure, I saw just how much my students needed to fight for their education and how much it represented a way out for many of them. Getting to come back years later to see many of my former students graduate high school and become the first members of their family to attend college remains one of the best moments of my career.

Following my time teaching language arts, I moved back to Texas to work in the Admission Office for my alma mater, Texas Christian University. For nearly ten years, I worked in the Office of Admission at TCU, where I recruited students, read applications, led workshops, and helped thousands of high school seniors navigate the college admission and financial aid processes. My time at TCU gave me an expertise in how the application and selection process works. It also gave me experience working with Gen Z students in a post-Covid world as they attempt to navigate the process of making one of the first truly big decisions in their lives.

While teaching and working in admissions, I have found the time to continue my own education. My master’s degree comes from the top graduate program in the country in education and included coursework on neurological functioning, working with neurodivergent students, and culturally-responsive teaching. Meanwhile, my doctoral degree in Higher Education Leadership includes work on student development, the philosophy of education, and cutting edge technologies and techniques that are pushing education into the 21st century and beyond. My dissertation specifically focuses on identity development for college students and how they use their undergraduate years to grow into the leaders of tomorrow.

Education has always represented opportunity to me. Growing up in a small, middle-of-nowhere town, I could see the vastly different life paths my classmates were on based on the courses they were taking and the efforts they made in school. My understanding of the importance of education only grew when I had the opportunity to teach in an inner-city school and it was that passion that I took with me to higher education, where I strove to push and aid students as they attempted to figure out a system that could be intimidating but also life-changing. I continue that work today with my private practice, guiding students and ensuring that they have every opportunity necessary to be successful.