BIO
- B.A. ’11, Yale Gordon College of Arts and Sciences
- Youngest person to graduate from The University of Baltimore
- Community leader and advocate
- Thrives at the intersection of people, policy and trust
I received my bachelor’s degree at 15 from The University of Baltimore. When people ask what shaped my voice, my discipline, and my sense of public purpose, I do not give an abstract answer. I point to UBalt, and to a campus that treated a young student not as a curiosity but as someone expected to rise to the moment.
UBalt gave me rigor without pretense. It understands what ambition looks like in real life, especially for students balancing work, family, and community obligations. In my classrooms, ideas were not handled like ornaments. They were handled like tools. Professors pushed me to write with clarity, argue with precision, and interrogate power with evidence. UBalt trained me to connect theory to practice and to translate complex systems into language people can use.
The University of Baltimore also gave me belonging at a formative time. Being a teenager in college meant navigating expectations built for someone older, without the usual cues or safety nets. UBalt created room for me to grow into the work and be stretched by it. Baltimore became part of my education, a living classroom in resilience, inequity, culture, and civic leadership. It kept my learning close to real people and real stakes, and it taught me to respect lived experience as a form of expertise.
That grounding has stayed with me as I have served. As outreach and wellness officer at D.C. Medicaid. As manager of the mail-in ballot processing division for the District of Columbia Board of Elections. As civic engagement coordinator for the University of the District of Columbia. Throughout my professional journey, I have held roles that sit at the intersection of policy, people, and trust. I focus on how government communicates with residents, how we show up for community, and how we build a culture that sustains the work. The habits UBalt sharpened are central to what I do every day.
Beyond government, UBalt helped mold me into someone who speaks and organizes with purpose. I spoke at the March on Washington. I have delivered guest lectures on justice and equity at colleges and universities, translating lived experience into frameworks that help students move from concern to capacity. I serve on the executive board of the D.C. Fair Budget Coalition because budgets are moral documents, and communities deserve to see values reflected in numbers. I have also participated in direct actions and mutual aid projects because change sometimes requires more than permission. For The University of Baltimore’s Centennial, I celebrate a University that makes room for uncommon journeys and then demands excellence within them. UBalt did not just help me earn a degree. It helped me become a public servant, a master communicator, and a fierce advocate who knows how to do the work and stand in the work. That is a legacy worth honoring, and worth extending for the next hundred years.