It's me. Hi.

Here we are, four months later. The context changes at a blazing pace. I hope you are feeling safe and supported with networks of resources wherever you are as everything keeps changing here in the United States. We are still creating community. We will energetically assert ourselves to support our kids. Especially young people whose personhood is being questioned. Especially young people whose education is made personal, appropriate, and successful thanks to the protections of IDEA. Especially our young people of color. This work is just and crucial, and it can result in a better present. And even joy.

My extreme gratitude to Beth Havinga of the European Edtech Alliance for preserving and cataloging important work and guidance that had previously been written and made available by the United States Department of Education. You can find this here.

I appreciate Shana V. White of the Kapor Center and Joe Meléndez-Naharro of the Friday Institute for Educational Innovation for pointing me to this compilation of resources!

It means so much to me to be able to continue to do work in shaping STEM learning, not just in schools, but also in the communities, afterschool experiences, and warm mentoring relationships that comprise the complete environment of a young mind today. To do the work, it feels very important to make my position in it clear.

As a white, cisgender, middle class woman educator and researcher, with experience in public school classroom teaching, museum and afterschool education design and management, and research, I acknowledge that my positionality shapes my perspective on identity-affirming STEM education for young women and other students of color. I recognize the privilege associated with my racial identity, which may impact how I interact with and interpret the experiences of students which backgrounds different than my own. I am committed to actively seeking out and amplifying diverse perspectives on education and engaging in critical self-reflection to ensure my research and curriculum design are sensitive to the experiences of historically excluded communities.

I also have the honor and joy of being a parent to a wonderful four year old, and a little person who is almost on Earth for a full year. (Here I am on stage for the "Pillars of Equity" panel with her at the 2023 CSforALL Summit. She is cozy up there with me.) I am helping to make the culture and the world that I want them to inhabit. This means everything to me.

"You can outlaw words, but you can't outlaw REALITY. The role of research is to shed light on those realities." (October 26, 2023)