1. What impact has OADI had on your professional career and students experience?

Something we're often not taught to seek in a job is "joy." I have come to realize how important joy is to me in my day-to-day work experience and all of the opportunities I have had to connect with OADI faculty, staff and students, provide me with great joy in the work that I do. Much of this is driven by the outstanding students who are gracious, thoughtful, smart, hardworking, resilient, and kind. 

2. Why is it important for you to stay connected to OADI?

I am truly interested in helping students find their innate and created gifts -- their "Why?" in terms of how they will make an impact on the world and how students both give and receive energy, talent, space, knowledge, etc., to make the world a better place. Staying connected to OADI means I get to collaborate with faculty and staff who truly care about students and their wellbeing and success, and I get to interface with some of the most grounded and peer-supportive student leaders I have ever met.

3. What are you looking forward to most in your career?

I am creating some new courses in the Brooks School of Public Policy and I look forward to building opportunities for community-engaged, project-based learning that will allow students to develop usable, tangible skills that will positively impact community health and health equity. I am looking forward to being blown away by our students.

Tell us a fun fact about yourself?

I think it's a really important skill to be able to lean into failure. It's something I speak with students about and personally am actively working on even in my 50s -- how do we take chances and let go of the need for perfection; to focus on the process and not the end product? So my fun fact is that I recently won "Best Wipeout" at surf camp. I'm so proud! I didn't win for the "biggest wave" or "longest ride" or "best style" --- I literally won an award for FAILURE! I'll take it!