Alumni in Action

I began my career as a producer at iVillage, planning editorial content and managing site operations for iVillage's politics, news, and diet and fitness sections. After iVillage, I joined the staff of New York City Council Member Bill de Blasio, most recently serving as his Chief of Staff. I was a real generalist, working on any number of different issues in a day...from district, city-wide and legislative issues to assisting the schools in the Council Member's Brooklyn district. I also worked on the campaigns of local and national Democrats, and was a freelance writer for iVillage and AOL.

Urban education reform was what I was most passionate about, though, so I decided to go back to school to deepen my understanding of this key issue. My interest in education was fueled by my experiences at the New York City Council. I worked closely with schools in the Council member's district, helping them tackle a wide variety of challenges they faced. For example, when the construction of additional classrooms at a Brooklyn elementary school appeared stalled, I coordinated with several City agencies to ensure and expedite the successful completion of the project.

I found out about Education Pioneers through Chaka Booker at the Broad Residency. He came to Duke to do an information session on Broad and he suggested Education Pioneers for those of us in our first year of grad school. It ended up being a perfect match for me. I always knew that I wanted to work in education but I wasn't sure what role would be the best fit for me. Spending the summer in the BPS communications office made it clear to me that a communications job was what I wanted.

Interacting with all of the other fellows over the course of the summer and hearing about their projects was an incredible way to learn about Boston's education landscape.

By August, I felt like I had experienced 30 summer placements instead of just one.

Education Pioneers was incredibly helpful during my full-time job search and Allison Wyatt was an amazing resource. In addition to offering lots of great advice, she introduced me to several people including a recruiter from Teach For America, where I ended up accepting a position as a Regional Communications Director.  In my current role, I handle media relations for six of Teach For America's regions - Denver, Greater New Orleans, the Mississippi Delta, the Rio Grande Valley, Houston and South Louisiana.

I'm inspired to go to the office every day because I work with an amazing group of people who believe the achievement gap can be closed and who are working hard every day to make that vision a reality.