I am a white queer married woman and mother. I was raised mostly in the Pacific Northwest and some on the Big Island of Hawaii in a working class family. I am now well educated and middle class. I was shaped by people who valued social justice and political action, coming of age in the 1990s during the Clinton era, and seeing the impact of trauma on my own family. These influences prompted me to pursue psychology as a profession and a mechanism for change at the personal, political, and community level.

I began my professional journey in a non-profit setting focused on ending gender-based violence and supporting survivors of sexual violence. I went on to work with diverse Veterans for twenty years in my public service career with the Department of Veterans Affairs, first as a pre-licensed therapist and later as a licensed psychologist. There, I served in a variety of settings and roles, all focused on providing PTSD specialty care, addressing health disparities for underserved Veterans, and providing supervision, consultation, and training to colleagues (licensed and pre-licensed). My career has focused on social justice and making positive change both from within and outside of institutions. I see reproductive freedom and body autonomy as human rights and as a clinician it is in line with my personal and professional values and ethics to support both.