Who I Am
As a Black feminist and liberation psychologist, I create space for healing and evolution, guiding individuals and organizations toward equitable, expansive, and free futures.
I’m a writer, facilitator, therapist, consultant, and coach. Grounded in the knowledge that movement toward liberation is a forever endeavor — the process of a lifetime and one that will continue far beyond this lifetime, I offer consultation and training to groups, organizations, and businesses, in the areas of mental health, wellness, anti-oppression, inclusion, and belonging. And because the political is also personal, I hold private psychotherapy and coaching practices for tech professionals in Silicon Valley. Witnessing someone radically change their life — even within systems designed to keep us small — is my sacred privilege and deepest joy.
My Journey
Originally from the ancestral and unceded land of the Muwekma Ohlone tribe, currently known as Palo Alto, CA, I am the biracial descendant of African slaves and white Irish immigrants. As a mixed kid growing up in the 80’s and 90’s, issues and themes of belonging were always really important to me because there were so many moments when I didn’t know where I belonged and lacked the language to put to it. My first entrance into gaining this vocabulary was through fiction, reading books like Mildred Taylor’s Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry, and Julia Alvarez In the Time of the Butterflies. When I got into high school I started reading writers like Toni Morrison and Isabelle Allende. This was the first time I was able to start putting language to these great big questions and feelings inside me and to my social and critical consciousness.
Background & Experience
I earned my Bachelor’s Degree cum laude in Culture Studies from UCLA’s Department of World Arts and Culture. I completed my Master’s and Doctoral Degrees in Clinical Psychology, with an academic emphasis in Diversity and Community Mental Health, from the Pacific Graduate School of Psychology at Palo Alto University. I finished my predoctoral internship and postdoctoral fellowship in Gender Studies & Women’s Health at the VA Caribbean Healthcare System in San Juan, Puerto Rico, while serving as the elected member-at-large for Diversity and Inclusion to the American Psychological Association’s graduate student board. Most recently, I spent four years at First Step — the Palo Alto VA’s 90-day residential substance use treatment program — where I provided individual and group therapy to veterans who experienced struggles with substance use, PTSD, anxiety, and depression. My experience also includes six years as faculty in the Stanford Graduate School of Business’s Women in Management program.
