My work began long before I entered a doctoral program.

It began with a journey that continually raised new questions.

As I navigated experiences that challenged the way I understood myself, other people, and the world around me, I found myself asking questions that became increasingly difficult to ignore.

Why do people with extraordinary potential come to believe they have so little?
Why do communities with shared histories sometimes struggle to understand one another?
How do the messages we receive about ourselves, others, and society shape the lives we ultimately build?

The more I experienced, the more I learned. The more I learned, the more questions I had. Over time, I began to notice patterns — patterns in education, relationships, communication, and the stories people inherit about who they are and what is possible. Those patterns eventually became the foundation of my work.

My journey has included profound challenges, including losing my father at a young age, experiencing homelessness as a teenager, becoming a mother while still discovering my own path, surviving abuse, and navigating seasons of uncertainty that tested my sense of identity and possibility. Those experiences did not define me, but they fundamentally shaped the questions I continue to explore today.

Rather than leading me away from education, those experiences drew me toward it. I spent more than a decade in direct clinical practice and education with varying populations. This enabled me to hone my lived experience, altruism, and intellectual curiosity to not just address symptoms but to focus on solutions. I came to see education not simply as the transfer of information, but as a process through which people develop greater understanding of themselves, one another, and the systems that shape their lives. I believe learning has the power to expand opportunity, strengthen self-determination, and transform the trajectories of individuals, families, and communities.

Today, I am a doctoral student in Educational Psychology at Howard University, where my current research examines these questions among students of African descent at HBCUs and PBIs — one entry point into a broader, lifelong commitment to globally empowering people of African descent, across the continent and throughout the diaspora. While my scholarship is grounded in educational psychology, the questions that drive my work extend well beyond the classroom.

Across my work as a researcher, educator, founder, speaker, podcaster, and creative, I explore how education, dialogue, communication, and emerging technologies can help people think more critically, engage more thoughtfully, and build stronger relationships across differences. My work is particularly concerned with the impact of miseducation, inherited narratives, and belief systems that influence how individuals understand themselves and others — and how those understandings shape personal and collective outcomes.

Whether I am conducting research, teaching, facilitating dialogue, creating art, hosting conversations, or developing educational initiatives, I am guided by a simple belief:

This work is more than a profession. It is the lifelong journey that emerged from the questions my own life first taught me to ask.

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Education