A college friend once said that everyone has a center, a place on Earth where they feel more like themselves than anywhere else. For me, it’s long been Melbourne, Australia. As a city, it’s elegant and charming, but also comfortable, like a well broken in pair of jeans.
This time, though, is different. I expected an instantaneous wave of calm to wash over me upon arrival, but it never materialized.
Jerk Brain is taunting me:
Remember how you promised that being here would make you healthier, happier, and whole? How’s that working out for you? Oh, right. It’s not. You’re just as much of a mess in the Southern Hemisphere as you are in the Northern. Crisp high five!
I find that I’m still disconnected from the person I know as myself. It’s strange and unexpected for me to be experiencing the symptoms of depression here. Turns out, depression doesn’t know borders. I’ve built up Melbourne to be my haven, elixir, tonic, and panacea all in one. It isn’t. It’s just a place. A place with the best coffee, beautiful river views, and where you can experience all four seasons in one day.
Over dinner last night, one of my friends suggested very gently that, perhaps, my center has shifted, evolving from a fixed location to a state of being. He intimated that it could be regarded as a form of personal maturation. His suggestion was that, maybe, instead of the temporal and the tangible, I should consider the infinite and the intangible. Rather than grasping at what is just seemingly out of reach, like Tantalus, I can focus on recognizing what is already within. I carry my place with me.
The truth of his words are undeniable. I won’t find peace looking externally. As I keep learning and relearning, there’s no fixing to be done. I’m not broken. I’m in search of a new way of being whole.
From history major, with side quests in Medieval Studies and chemical engineering, to nonprofit finance leader, Big 4 tax partner, technologist, researcher, and now co-founder of Divine, nothing about my career has been linear. The throughline has always been systems: financial systems, organizational systems, technological systems, and human systems. I have an MBA in Operations and Supply Chain Management and a PhD in Organizational Leadership Psychology, and I’ve spent my career trying to understand how complex systems shape people’s choices, opportunities, wellbeing, and sense of belonging. Today, my work sits at the intersection of psychology, technology, human-centered design, and digital trust. I am co-founder of Divine, an open-source, decentralized social video app built to put creativity back in human hands and replace doomscrolling with joyscrolling. Divine is part of a bigger question I care deeply about: how do we create online spaces that support safety, creativity, identity, and belonging without defaulting to surveillance, extraction, or control? At Divine, I wear a lot of hats across engineering, finance, operations, and strategy, while helping shape the app’s trust, safety, and values work. I focus especially on teen online safety, human-generated content, participatory design, and healthier relationships with technology. I am a postdoctoral alum of Vanderbilt University’s Department of Computer Science, where I worked with Dr. Pam Wisniewski’s Socio-Technical Interaction Research Lab. I continue to write, speak, and research at the intersection of online safety, digital trust, decentralized technology, and youth wellbeing. I was named a Distinguished Fellow at the Institute for Data Integrity in 2023. In 2025, I had the honor of serving as President of Division 13 of the American Psychological Association, the Society of Consulting Psychology. I also live with major depressive disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder. In 2020, I took a leave from PwC to focus on my mental wellness, and I now speak and write openly about mental health, especially in the workplace and in relation to digital wellbeing. This blog, Seriously Jerk Brain, chronicles much of that journey.
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Very true! As I say to my clients, there is no such thing as a geographical fix!
By the way, would love to meet up when you are back. You said that you were interested in hearing more about the state of mental health treatment in Houston. Would be happy to tell you about what I know. And see your lovely self!
Seriously, Jerk Brain?! 
Great post 😁
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Very true! As I say to my clients, there is no such thing as a geographical fix!
By the way, would love to meet up when you are back. You said that you were interested in hearing more about the state of mental health treatment in Houston. Would be happy to tell you about what I know. And see your lovely self!
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