Ever since I can remember, I’ve loved learning about history. There was no place or era that didn’t interest me, and when I started my academic career, I made it a life goal to fill in all the gaps in my historical knowledge. 

I received a B.A. in the history of the Americas and Africa from UC Santa Cruz, and after I graduated, I wanted to help immigrants and refugees find their voice in America. I started volunteering at libraries as an ESL conversation facilitator and ESL grammar instructor. I took classes in teaching English as a second language while pursuing my master’s degree in recent American history at San Jose State University. While there, I also spent two and a half years tutoring English and writing at the university’s Writing Center and discovered my love for helping students feel more confident about their writing and assignments. 

I believe that knowledge is power, and being able to express one’s thoughts and experiences can make all the difference on the road to success. As I grew as a tutor and teacher, I discovered that I loved finding unique and easy-to-understand ways to explain grammatical and conversational aspects of the English language while learning about different cultures from around the world. I believe that supporting students in their own academic journey should involve an open mind, flexibility, and compassion.

Although my degree is in recent American history, I strongly believe that you cannot truly understand history without studying world history. While at UC Santa Cruz, I studied socioeconomic policies, the global Cold War, and social movements in the 20th century. For my master’s degree, I dove deep into the Reconstruction/Gilded Age, Progressive Era, and World War I with a concentration on cultural history, immigration, and industrialization.

In my free time, you can find me listening to lectures about history, going to art museums, reading fantasy or sci-fi books, or writing my own fantasy series.