About Me

Language. Story. Care.

I am a community educator, facilitator, and artist working at the intersection of language, care, and collective learning.

I currently serve as Program Director of the McKinley Park Resilient Community Initiative at Aquinas Literacy Center, where I design and lead community-based programs focused on adult education, resilience, and collective care. My work centers on creating learning spaces where people can reflect, connect, and build practical tools for navigating change—together.

I come to this work through many years in education and the arts. I hold a Ph.D. in Performance Studies, and my earlier work in higher education as a professor, theatre director, and program founder continues to inform how I think about learning, presence, and collective experience. Over time, my work moved steadily beyond the university and into community-based settings, where learning is relational, needs are immediate, and care is collective.

My background in theatre and performance continues to shape how I work. It informs how I read rooms, listen to people, pace learning, and design experiences that attend to attention, emotion, and embodiment. I understand facilitation not as instruction, but as holding space—structuring conditions where people can speak, learn, and support one another.

Across my work, I am guided by a few core commitments:

• Learning as relational, not transactional

• Structure that supports freedom

• Care without condescension

• Language as access, not gatekeeping

• Presence over performance

Whether facilitating a community program, collaborating with partners, or engaging in creative practice, my aim is the same: to support learning that feels grounded, humane, and genuinely shared.

Based in Chicago, working with community partners locally and beyond.