PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
In the Field
I am currently a Program Officer at the Barra Foundation, where I steward arts and culture and education-related projects that embody a commitment to risk-taking, innovation, and novel approaches to community challenges. Before joining Barra, I served as Health & Wellness Director at Puentes de Salud, where I led and managed a portfolio of wellness programs, collaborated with a teaching artist to design and execute arts programming, and shepherded partnership opportunities to advance Puentes’ work.
As a Consultant
As an independent consultant I conducted commissioned research for the Wallace Foundation and LISC’s Creative Placemaking program, and as a Research Fellow at NYU’s John Brademas Center I contributed to projects related to the social impact of the arts, including a Mellon Foundation-funded study of the relationship between arts engagement and social wellbeing in California. As an Affiliate at Metris Arts Consulting, I led projects with the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts and HumanitiesDC.
In Service
I am currently a NextGen advisor to the Forman Arts Initiative in Philadelphia, and I serve as chair of the Board of Directors of Philadelphia’s Magic Gardens. Additionally, in 2020-2021 I supported a group of Latinx business owners to form the Asociación de Empresarios Mexicanos en Philadelphia; I currently sit on the organization’s board as well as that of Juntos.
As a Scholar
Between 2014 and 2020, I completed my Ph.D. training in sociology at Princeton University. In addition to my graduate work, I served on a Princeton-wide committee that works with the provost to provide input on budgetary priorities, and ran Princeton’s Interdisciplinary Ethnography Workshop for a year.
Early Career
Before graduate school, I worked as an evaluation consultant at the Lawrence Hall of Science at UC Berkeley. At the Hall I helped to design and implement qualitative and quantitative research and evaluation projects for internal and external clients, project managed engagements, including the Hall’s Long Range Planning process, and served as program manager for the Coalition for Science After School, guiding the group’s closure and planning and securing funding for a major convening.
In my early career I spent most of my time in museums. During college at the University of Chicago I worked as an Exhibition Development intern at the Field Museum, and spent time in the education departments of Chicago’s Smart Museum of Art and the de Young Museum. I also worked for nearly a year at GreatSchools.org, as part of a Residency in Social Enterprise run by New Sector Alliance, and spent a year as an Emerging Arts Professionals Fellow in the San Francisco Bay Area.
FELLOWSHIPS, AWARDS & HONORS
Princeton University Fellowship of Woodrow Wilson SCholars
International Society for Third-Sector Research Ph.D. Seminar
NSF doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant
Rockefeller Foundation Junior Scholars Forum
Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action Emerging Scholar Award
University of Pennsylvania Social Impact Doctoral Fellow
Emerging Arts Professionals Fellow
Visitor Studies Association April Award
American Alliance of Museums Fellow
For more detailed information, Download my Resume or Academic C.V.