I grew up a “Cold War kid” in New Hope, Pennsylvania, the fourth of five children of midwestern parents. A conservative, Catholic school upbringing was balanced by my hometown’s reputation as the “little San Francisco of the East Coast.” My cosmopolitan ethic was seeded during a summer in Maine at World Peace Camp with my then Soviet peers and on a high school scholarship program to Germany. After graduating from the University of Notre Dame, I began my career within education as a school teacher at an independent school, the Cornelia Connelly Center (CCC), which serves low-income girls of the Lower East Side, New York City. I received my Ph.D. in Comparative and International Education from Columbia University (2012) and master’s in International Educational Development and Peace Education from Teachers College (2008). My research and teaching are in the fields of peace education and conflict transformation, and my principal interest lies in the transformative potential of educational initiatives in post/conflict societies and for girls living in urban poverty. 

With eleven years of progressive leadership and expanding management responsibilities at Georgetown University, I have earned an indisputable reputation for my commitment to inclusive leadership, racial equity, and nourishing relationships. Moreover, I have developed unexpected gifts for team creation and building, compelling supervision, and professionally developing peers and subordinates who thrive with resilience and creative problem-solving. As a White cisgendered woman with advanced schooling, I enact my privilege towards a vocation of service. I use my first-hand experience as a hard-of-hearing person to thread disability justice through all aspects of a professional environment, including programming, events, and training. My tenure as a faculty member responsible in part for Georgetown University’s community engagement portfolio translates into a profound comfort working alongside a broad spectrum of people - from renowned scientists to youth in the justice system, from teachers at under-resourced schools to generous donors. As a self-identified global citizen with an academic and professional background in international educational development, I can lend significant expertise to issues that traverse borders, languages, and religions.         

I have been a proud resident of Washington, DC since 2008, and live with my husband neuroscientist Bill Rebeck and child Jackson on Capitol Hill. As a Catholic and Democrat, I resonate deeply with the platform and discourse of President Biden and Vice President Harris. Their ways of leading and being speak directly to my own ethical and moral foundations rooted in solidarity, the preferential option for the poor, and compassion. I hear mission and vision in their words and can see their actions centering dignity and care for those on the ‘margins,’ as we say in Jesuit education circles. Similar to the leaders of our new administration, I believe strongly that institutions can be changed and be a vehicle for social change.