When I was in middle school, I wanted to be a mathematician, an author, or someone who worked for NASA -- not as a glamorous astronaut, but as a person in Mission Control solving the hard problems so the astronauts could explore for all of us. I never did become any of those things, exactly, and yet I sort of did. I've been drawn to writing over and over through my life; I've enjoyed doing years of math as a scientist, parent, and teacher; and now I am basically doing Mission Control to help kids explore math and achieve for all of us and our future.

I teach sixth grade math at da Vinci Arts Middle School, a focus option public school in Portland, Oregon. Previously, I've taught math to students in sixth through twelfth grades and physical science to seventh and ninth graders. Teaching is my second workplace career, following my previous experiences as a technical and grant proposal writer for a chemistry software company and a stay-at-home parent to my two sons. I was a math and chemistry double major at Swarthmore College, have a master's degree in Physical Chemistry from Columbia University, and got my teaching degree with an Advanced Math endorsement from Lewis & Clark in 2009, adding a Chemistry endorsement in 2011. I believe passionately that all students can thrive and grow as they use math to solve problems and study our world.