My first real job was working as a summer camp counselor at Camp Ramapo, a residential program in upstate New York serving young people labeled as having “social, emotional and behavioral challenges.”  I loved this work and spent the next 7 summers learning, growing and connecting with campers and counselors at Ramapo.  I followed this passion to other roles in youth development—in residential care, the backcountry with Outward Bound, as an after-school program director in Brooklyn and an intervention specialist in Oakland, CA.  However, the more I learned and grew as a professional the more I realized how much systems and policies shaped the institutions in which I was working.  I became interested in understanding this more deeply which brought me to an interest in history and organizational theory.  I had the privilege of studying at the Graduate School of Education at the University of California at Berkeley and earned a PhD in Social and Cultural Studies in Education.  My dissertation focused on how the institutionalization of punitive and criminalizing disciplinary policies that disproportionately harmed students of color in New York City was influenced by white resistance to school integration.

I have worked with hundreds of schools and youth development organizations with a focus on building the capacity of adults to understand and respond to behavior as communication.  This includes understanding their own behavior, triggers and responses by engaging in reflective practice.