My story is layered by design.

I was identified as gifted at the age of five. I skipped two grades and graduated high school at fifteen. On paper, I looked exceptional. In reality, I often felt unseen.

While my family expected me to do well, I did not have the support within the schoolhouse to hone my talents or fully develop my gifts. I learned early how to perform, but not how to be nurtured. That experience shaped my lifelong conviction that potential alone is never enough without systems that know how to cultivate it.

I am a proud product of the public school system. I believe in it deeply—even when I am dissatisfied with what I see—and that belief is precisely why I remain committed to it.

My educational journey was not traditional. It took years of part-time classes, starting and stopping, taking courses when life allowed.
That journey came full circle with the completion of my Doctorate of Education in Educational Leadership. Along the way, I received a fellowship to study at Oxford, where I focused on contemporary issues in education from a global perspective.

I incurred significant student loan debt simply to access education—and eventually worked my way out from under six figures of student loans.

I am also a John Maxwell–certified coach, grounded in the belief that healthy, values-driven leadership is essential to sustainable change.

I am the daughter of an alcoholic parent and another whose hyper-religiosity created fear rather than covering. Long before I was of legal age, I learned what it meant to feel bound instead of protected.

At nine years old, I experienced sexual trauma. Years later, I experienced it again as an adult. For many years, I carried shame, pain, guilt, and so much more, but I am beyond thankful for my freedom from the weight of something that once seemed to crush my lungs, affecting my ability to function in a world filled with perceived threat.

These experiences profoundly shaped how I understand faith, leadership, education, and healing.

I am a proud mother of two teenage boys—both miracle children. After being told by doctors that I would never conceive, my first son was called a miracle after all my body had endured. My second son was considered an even greater miracle—born at just 24 weeks, he fought for his life for 84 days in the NICU. A few years later, I experienced the pain of divorce. And yet, God has always been faithful to me.