Hometown: New Bedford, Massachusetts

Current Program: Urban Education Policy

Undergraduate Institution: Brown University

What drew you to the UEP program at Brown? 

I’ve always been passionate about education and how it can be used to empower students from a wide variety of backgrounds. The UEP program offered the concrete skills and degree of specialization that I felt would help me best contribute to the field.

What’s been your favorite UEP class and why?

My favorite UEP class was "Race and Democracy in Urban Education Policy," instructed by Professor Jonathan Collins. The class not only pushed my skills as a writer and researcher to new levels of clarity and precision, but helped break down the bureaucracy of education decision making while keeping these conversations rooted in the interests of the students and teachers on the ground.

Where is your internship placement and what are you working on?

I currently am a part time research analyst at the Community College of Rhode Island. I help break down the data to give digestible figures and statistics for different branches of the college.

What are you hoping to do after graduation? 

After graduation I hope to work in Rhode Island implementing policy and working directly with students before someday going back to work in New Bedford public education.

If you could wave a magic wand and fix one challenge in the world of education, what would it be and why? 

I believe every school system has nuanced challenges, so even if I could “fix” one challenge across the board, it likely wouldn’t help all schools, but rather the issues of the schools I have personally worked with. I would lean generally towards integrating schools across race and income though to reduce the achievement gap in segregated schools.

I am most passionate about… 

Inspiring, emboldening, and helping students grow fully into themselves as not only academics, but as passionate, kind-hearted people.

— interview by Sam Stockwell UEP'20