The global reaction to COVID-19 is starting to look like what the response to climate change should be, but isn’t, because human beings are notoriously bad when it comes to overestimating our own abilities and the probability that something will happen to us. Although management theories promulgating the idea of a Knowledge Economy set against the backdrop of the Information Age and the advent of the Fourth Industrial Revolution abound, what really drives the market is willful ignorance, unsubstantiated opinion adopted as fact, and evidence-informed thinking dismissed as elitism. Like ostriches that bury their heads in the sand, creating an illusion of safety, human beings avoid reality through the creation of fantasy. This isn’t new, but it is increasingly more dangerous.
Climate change creates new ecosystems by changing the parameters that regulate our environment. Warmer temperatures mean more bugs and insects. Imagine a pandemic like COVID-19 that’s spread not only via human contact, but also by mosquitoes or ticks or fleas living on mice, rats, deer, birds, dogs, and cats. These vectors are undeterred by national border closings.
In Houston, where I live, we know how to get through natural disasters like Cat 5 hurricanes and catastrophic flash floods. We band together as communities, counting on Mattress Mac, JJ Watt, HEB, and the Cajun Navy to get us through. COVID has taken away our primary response mechanism as a community, our ability to congregate safely, share resources, and be emotionally present for one another in person. Unlike the typical weather-related disaster, COVID hasn’t taken away electricity, mobile connectivity, or running water. The effect of climate change means adding an entirely new set of constraints to the privations already imposed by a global pandemic spread through person-to-person contact.
The major difference between COVID-19 and climate change is the time from threat detection to barely sufficient response. Humanity is like the proverbial frog in the pot, not realizing that the water is boiling until it is too late. We have an opportunity to take action now. We must.
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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Seriously, Jerk Brain?! 
And the choir sang :”Amen.”
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Thanks Liz! I hope this message gets through
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