Whoops! This post got stuck “in draft” lets just pretend I posted it on Friday morning…
Every Friday, the friendly Apple Music algorithms create a playlist of songs I haven’t listened to on the app before. It bases the selections on my recent listening habits. Although occasionally I’ll discover a gem, like Joshua Hyslop’s cover of The Weepy’s World Spins Madly On, most of the time the tracks aren’t particularly memorable. Every so often, there is a suggestion that causes me to question my life choices. Today was one of those days. Did you know that Nickelback recorded a cover of We Will Rock You?
Perhaps Apple believes that my appreciation for Queen makes up for my disdain for Nickelback? Spoiler alert: it doesn’t. But, seeing the song listed there did prompt me to revisit Queen’s catalogue, especially my favorite song of theirs. Under Pressure is, unquestionably, one of the greatest songs ever written. To fully appreciate the raw talent of the two lead singers on the track, Freddy Mercury and David Bowie, you have to listen to the recording isolating their vocals. It is haunting and devastatingly impressive.
I’m not sure there is a better song for the times through which we are living.
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?! 
Try this:
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