About

Throughout my career I have intentionally sought out projects that align with my passion for community development and social impact.

Growing up in the suburbs of DC, I spent weekends volunteering at food distribution centers and events in low-income neighborhoods. That's where my commitment to building more equitable communities became personal.

I studied Construction Engineering in undergrad at Virginia Tech with the intention of leveraging my skills toward tangible solutions for vulnerable populations. I thought that if I could decrease the cost of construction, I could contribute to solving the affordable housing crisis. That took me to hospital expansions in Chicago and LA, and to managing affordable housing renovations at NYCHA in East Brooklyn.

Though I loved what I did, I kept running into the gap between what gets built and who it actually serves. No matter how efficiently you build, what determines who can afford to live somewhere is policy.

That pushed me to start doing my own research to understand how construction projects transform neighborhoods and who gets pushed out in the process.

That's what brought me to Penn. At Weitzman I've been learning how to ask better questions about cities using data. I've had the opportunity to work with amazing researchers and present my own work at the Association of American Geographers conference in San Francisco. The methods are different than they used to be but the goal is the same one I've been working toward since those weekends in DC.

I am committed to working in spaces where research reaches the people who need it most.