I miss seeing my friends. Quarantine and social distancing mean that even the people who live near me are out of reach. Those in different hemispheres might as well be on Mars. Being able to chat over video helps, but it isn’t the same. In some cases, I know it will likely be years before I see certain of my friends again.
As I tumble forward in this new normal, unsure of what will come next, I find myself acutely aware of just how much time and distance there is between my present and a future that resembles the past. At the same time, I am also more certain that it will come to pass. I’ve felt very uncertain, and consequently anxious, over the last few months about whether I will ever travel again and see my friends in person. It’s dramatic, but the despondency has felt real.
Now, I live with the tension of knowing that it is raining but that the sun will come out. Hope is what keeps me reaching.
Published by liz
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?! 
I hear you–I miss seeing you and my other friends. I haven’t been more than 10 miles from my house in 6 months (and that’s only for doctor/dentist appointments). Looking forward to the day when our worlds can be bigger again.
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