About me

I grew up in Oakland, California with my younger sister, our parents, and our two dogs. As a child, my time was equally divided between the worlds I discovered through reading books and in the swimming pool; I was an avid reader and a competitive swimmer. Growing up, books such as The Boxcar Children, The Wind and the Willows, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and all of Roald Dahl's other books inspired a lifelong love for literature. Elementary school was consumed with Harry Potter and the Lord of the Rings. In middle and high school, my favorite authors were Jane Austen, John Steinbeck, Zadie Smith, and Barbara Kingsolver, along with so many others. In between the time I spent in the imaginative worlds in stories, I was at swim practice or at swim meets. In high school, I was captain of my school's water polo team and also worked as a lifeguard.
My interest in literature eventually lead me to Columbia University where I majored in English and Comparative Literature with a focus on Virginia Woolf and early twentieth-century British literature. I took French classes throughout college and continue to have a working knowledge of French. During college, I was trained as a Peer Educator at Sexual Violence Response, a rape crisis center at Columbia. I still have a strong commitment to bringing awareness to the pervasiveness of sexual violence. By attending college in New York City, I fell in love with the city—the noises, the people, the art, the food, the music—and I am happy to call this place home.
Following college, I spent two years in western Massachusetts during the COVID pandemic. In 2020, recently out of college and uncertain of where my career was headed, I began working as a caregiver to pass the time before I found a more permanent job. However, what started out as a temporary way to make a bit of extra cash turned into a lifelong commitment to understand and cultivating the creativity and well-being of children. I find immense joy and opportunity in joining the imaginative worlds of kids. I am fascinated by the meaning behind developmental milestones and their implication for future emotional and behavioral success. I am particularly interested in the factors that cultivate resilience in children. My work as a caregiver has led me to pursue a career as a clinical child psychologist. In August 2022, I returned to NYC to begin a graduate program in general psychology at the New School for Social Research. I am taking courses in developmental psychology, social psychology, and cognitive psychology, all of which inform my work as a caregiver.
I have many years of caregiving experience in a variety of roles—a primary babysitter/nanny, a date night babysitter, a special needs support, a camp counselor, and a tutor.
Most recently, I worked as the after-school caregiver for two boys, ages 5 and 10mo-22mo. I would pick the kids up from school and daycare, provide nourishing snacks, and engage in fun and safe activities. We would go to the library or to the park, for a swim at the local pool, or to a museum. I sometimes accompanied the boys to doctor and dentist appointments. If the parents worked late or had a date night, I would cook the kids dinner and do bath time and bedtime routine. I changed the younger boy's diaper and fed him bottles as needed. I worked as an overnight sitter on several occasions while the parents were away, picking the kids up from school and doing the usual routine, putting them to bed and spending the night, and then getting them ready for school and dropping them off in the morning. Over the year I worked with these boys, I greatly enjoyed watching the older boy start kindergarten, cultivate his interests, and become more independent (he now takes the bus home from school which he is thrilled about!); I loved seeing the younger boy go from a crawling infant to a verbal toddler and watching his ability to express his needs and his interests grow and develop. I worked for this family in Massachusetts and while I greatly miss them, I am still very connected to them. I have a pen pal relationship with the older boy and I see the kids whenever I can.
Additionally, I have experience as an as-needed sitter with infants. I have recently been working as an occasional babysitter for a 2-month-old girl as her mom returns to work following maternity leave. I go on walks with her in the stroller, practice tummy time, sing to her, give her bottles as needed, and change her diaper. I support her cognitive development by talking to her, listening to various sounds, feeling textures, and engaging her in eye movement. I am also a date night sitter for a family with a 4-month-old. When her parents go out for the evening, I give her a bottle and get her ready for sleep, feed her when she wakes up, changes her diaper, and comfort her as needed.
I have also worked with kids with special needs including autism, blindness, developmental delays, and epilepsy. As a support for a 9-year-old with developmental delays and dysregulation, I administered feeding through a gastrointestinal tube and managed bathroom breaks, in addition to providing company and support during playtime. I also helped an 8-year-old who was born blind and had nonverbal autism. I would guide him on walks and we would listen to music. He had an amazing ability to communicate what he was feeling through sounds and harmonies. My responsibilities included changing his diaper, picking him up from school, and communicating with his mom.
In addition to my direct experience working with kids, I have been trained as an ACT/SAT tutor with Compass Education Group. I am also CPR and first-aid certified and have previously worked as a lifeguard. I have a car and am more than comfortable driving kids to activities.
My caregiving philosophy is founded on Maria Montessori's idea of "following the child." I, myself attended Berkeley Montessori School from first through fifth grade and I credit my love for learning and much of my academic success to my Montessori education. Montessori schooling provided me with a container in which I could experiment, think, imagine, and grow; I developed passions and interests a hold to this day. I am interested in entering a child's world—their imagination, their interests, their way of thinking—and finding ways to guide their creativity, their intellectual abilities, and their capacities for kindness and generosity.
In many ways, caregiving unites all my interests—reading, books, stories, and imagination with emotions, psychology, and development. Being with kids offers a way for me to bring my past experience studying literature and cultivating imagination together with my current academic work on psychological development. I am endlessly trying to understand ways, both empirical and theoretical, to help and support kids.
When I am not with kids or studying kids in school, I am walking my basset hound/cattle dog mix puppy Yarrow, cooking, tending to my houseplants, or reading fiction. I live in Brooklyn.