About Me

I believe in the inherent intersection of individual and collective change. With over a decade of holding leadership positions within the non-profit/public sector and of racial justice community organizing work, I combine this experience with somatics to support in individual and collective processes for healing, transformation, and social change.

I hold this work as sacred. Building our individual and collective capacity for us to navigate the pressures, pains and sorrows in the world is critical, right now. We are both deserving and in a time of deep need for us to be connected, present, and on purpose. Systems of oppression, like capitalism, white supremacy, colonialism, climate destruction, the list goes on, thrive off us being disconnected, distracted, and numb. Our bodies store our histories and stories, and by dignifying them, we can soften and create space for something new to root - for us to transform ourselves into a new shape that allows us to embody and align with our values more deeply. Somatics and collective healing offer us ways to build our capacity to hold all emotions and experiences from grief to joy to anger to possibility, all in support of our aliveness.

Read about the lineages I draw from here.

PERSONAL BACKGROUND

Alongside all else on this website, I am a white cisgender, heterosexual, currently able-bodied woman who was born and raised in a middle-class family in the Midwest, and come from Northwestern European ancestors (French, German, British). I am an auntie to five niblings, a devout cat mama to Buddy, and a garden tender. In community, I love to sing, host potlucks, and celebrate the seasons’ turnings. I thrive on swimming in fresh bodies of water, camping every chance I can get, and dabbling in watercolor. I eat a vegan/WFPB diet for political solidarity, environmental impact, and animal treatment reasons, and am grateful for my access to delicious and healthy foods. We all deserve this. I am an anti-racist and abolitionist organizer who builds towards and believes in a different world of interconnectedness, regeneration, and liberation for all beings and the earth.

PROFESSIONAL BACKGROUND

Most recently, I had the honor as the facilitator and a co-founder for an abolitionist alternative to police program, the first of its kind in Michigan, called Care-Based Safety (CBS). This work included year-long meetings with a group of community leaders, 18 community co-creation sessions with 100 participants, and hiring two co-directors. To align with our principles, we adopted a Sociocratic peer-governance model for the organization.

Prior to this role, I held the role of Network Manager for the Government Alliance on Race and Equity (GARE), an initiative through Race Forward a national racial justice organization, to advance racial equity in government through a peer-to-peer learning network national model. I designed, managed and implemented responsive and high quality racial equity content for a rapidly growing membership network of 360+ government jurisdictions across the nation, resulting in 99+ programming sessions per year. Previously, I led the racial equity efforts for Washtenaw County, MI, through training staff, implementing a racial equity framework into functions and operations, and designing and launching the inaugural Racial Equity Office.

For 10 years prior, I led staff and programming for youth development programs as Program Director of Trail Blazers Camps, a wilderness camp for young people from New York City, as a Program Manager at iMentor-NYC, and as a restorative justice consultant for educators.

EXPERIENCE & CREDENTIALS

POLITICAL, RESTORATIVE JUSTICE, SOMATICS & GRIEF RITUAL EDUCATION

  • Grief Ritual Mentorship (2023-current), Shauna Janz

  • Grief & Action, The Work that Reconnects (2023-Present), Joanna Macy

  • Embodying Racial Justice, Somatics Level II (4 days/32 hrs), Dara Silverman (2023)

  • Sociocracy Trainer & Consultant (year-long), Sociocracy For All (2023)-in progress; certification TBE 12/23

  • Somatic Bodywork, Level II (5 days/40 hrs), Strozzi Institute (2023)

  • Somatic Coach Certification Program (9 mos/160 hrs), Strozzi Institute (2022-2023)

  • Before We Were White, European-descent ancestral recovery (2022), White Awake

  • Transformative Movement Leadership 101 and 201, Movement Strategy Center (2017, 2018)

  • Certified Restorative Justice Practitioner (2015-2016)

    • (1) Morningside Heights for Teaching Social Responsibility, NYC

    • (2) Advanced Training with Kay Pranis

    • (3) Dominic Barter

  • Undoing Racism and Community Organizing, People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond (2013, 2014)

ACADEMIC EDUCATION

  • The University of Michigan I Master in Social Work, Macro Social Policy & Program Eval. (‘16) 

  • The College of Wooster  I  Bachelor of Arts, Sociology

RACIAL JUSTICE COMMUNITY ORGANIZING

  • Core Creator & Organizer (2023-Present), Ceasefire Carols + Ceasefire Chorus International Movement

  • Anti-Racism Community Award Recipient (2023), Interfaith Council for Peace & Justice

  • Core Organizer (2020-Current), Participatory Defense Freedom Team

  • Co-Creator & Core Organizer (2021-2022), Coalition for Re-envisioning Our Safety, abolitionist group

  • Supporter (2016, 2021), Water Protector & Indigenous Sovereignty (Standing Rock; Stop Line 3)

  • Co-Creator & Core Organizer (2019-2022), Liberate! Don’t Incarcerate, abolitionist group 

  • Community Representative (2019), Michigan Medicine Community Health Coordinating Committee 

  • Task Force Member (2018), Creation of Police Oversight Commission for City of Ann Arbor

  • Co-Creator & Facilitator (2018), Transformative Justice: Alternatives to Policing and Prisons series

  • Co-Creator & Core Organizer (2017-2018), Transforming Justice Washtenaw, community group

  • Core Organizer (2016-2018), Collective Against White Supremacy, community group

  • Core Organizer/Urgent Responder (2016-2018), Washtenaw Interfaith Coalition for Immigrant Rights

  • Organizer & Facilitator (2013-2015), European Dissent via People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond

  • Co-Creator & Facilitator (2008-2010), Student Advocates for Diversity, whiteness exhibit, college group

PRESENTATIONS & WRITINGS

  • Racism Stops with Me: Circle for White-identified People workshop, Restorative Justice in Motion Conference  

  • Anti-Racist Organizing & White Folks’ Role workshop, MLK Jr. Symposium, School of Social Work, UMichigan

  • Bringing a Racial Justice Consciousness to the Restorative Justice Movement: A Call to White Practitioners Co-author, published in the Listening to The Movement anthology

  • Healing Justice: A Restorative Justice Movement panel, Dispute Resolution Center 

  • Build Power Conference: Organizing Against White Supremacy workshop, School of Social Work, UMichigan

  • Anti-Racist Organizing & White Folks’ Role workshop, MLK Jr. Symposium, School of Social Work, UMichigan

  • Race, Violence, Public Policy and Social Trauma panel, Ford School of Public Policy, UMichigan

  • Navigating Our Role as White Folks in Social Work workshop, Nat’l Association of Social Workers LEAD Conf.