About Me

I’m a social change advocate, communicator, educator, and organizer working for progressive causes. I’m the Board Chair of The Peace Alliance, a U.S.-based nonprofit that advocates for domestic and international peacebuilding priorities.

I studied psychology as an undergrad and earned a master’s in Humanities and Leadership, with a focus on culture, ecology, and sustainable community.

My writings have appeared on CNN, Newsweek, HuffPost, Salon, Medium and other outlets. I’m also the author of Living Out Loud: Young Adults, Finding Our Purpose, Shaping a Better World.

Social change activism has been my main professional adult focus. I’ve been particularly focused on studying and researching the fields of peacebuilding and conflict resolution. Exploring what brings us peace; culturally, interpersonally and as individuals. Looking deeply at the science and practice of cultivating peace in all it forms and arenas.

For over 15 years I helped lead a successful U.S. based peacebuilding focused NGO, which was co-founded along with former Presidential candidate Marianne Williamson and others.

The Peace Alliance (www.peacealliance.org) is an alliance of organizers and advocates throughout the United States taking the work of peacebuilding from the margins of society into the centers of national discourse and policy priorities. We mobilize a network of grassroots teams in cities, towns, colleges and high school campuses. I helped coach and trained thousands of people to be more effective citizens and activists towards our shared cause of peace – in ourselves and on Earth. We trained not only on how to be effective at activism, but also how to embody peace as a core operating value in our activism.

Our Accomplishments:

On a policy level, we have helped spearhead efforts through our organization and close allies to pass numerous pieces of federal legislation (and some state), including:

• Helped secure over $110,000,000 in funding for International Peacebuilding priorities;
• Led successful national effort to secure U.S. Institute of Peace funding when Congress threatened to eliminate it completely during budget battles;
• Passed meaningful provisions of the Youth PROMISE Act (one of their top legislative priorities) as part of the final version of the Every Student Succeeds Act, S. 1177, which passed into law, and the Juvenile Justice Delinquency and Prevention Act in the House of Representatives;
• Supported the path for President Obama to sign an Executive Order to institutionalize the U.S. State Department’s Atrocities Prevention Board;
• Helped garner over 70 co-sponsors in the House of Representatives for legislation to establish a U.S. Department of Peacebuilding, including the introduction and support in the Senate.
• Helped educate and advocate for the inclusion of “Peacebuilding” efforts as part of the Democrats 10 key foreign policy priorities;
• Passage of the first in the nation Colorado Restorative Justice in Schools bill to implement and fund programs state-wide;
• Helped educate and advocate for the inclusion of meaningful “Peacebuilding” efforts as part of the Democrats 10 key foreign policy priorities in 2009;
• California Democratic Party adopted key Peacebuilding priorities into its party platform.