I’m continually amazed by the wise things my children say. Over the years, a few phrases in particular have stuck with me. One that I keep returning to was uttered by my elder daughter about two years ago. As a belated birthday present, I had taken her for an extended weekend trip with just the two of us to Sausalito, California. She had chosen the location indirectly, stipulating that she wanted to go hiking, eat burritos, and not get jet lag. On our second day, we embarked on a day-long hike through the Golden Gate Reserve. As always, she was a trooper. We covered 7.6 miles that day with 1,713 feet of elevation gain in just under four hours.
As we reached the top of the last hill on the way back, we paused to take in the view and sip some water. I asked her if the climb was hard for her. She looked over at me and said,
If it isn’t hard, then you don’t get stronger. And you need to get stronger so you can do more fun stuff.
As I move through this season of my life, on this journey I never expected to be on, I think a lot about her words. Right now, this is hard, but I will get stronger. And, when I am stronger, I will be able to do more fun stuff.
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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Wow, I want to be like her when I grow up (some more) 🙂 Such simple philosophy comprehended at such young age — parenting done right (as if the thoughtful birthday gift wasn’t telling)!
Seriously, Jerk Brain?! 
That’s an awesome story! Thanks for sharing.
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Wow, I want to be like her when I grow up (some more) 🙂 Such simple philosophy comprehended at such young age — parenting done right (as if the thoughtful birthday gift wasn’t telling)!
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