When we first moved into our community, about eight years ago, the couple who owned the home immediately behind ours seemed to be on a quest to make everyone miserable. In almost two decades of marriage, the only time I have heard my husband yell was at an HOA meeting. There was an issue with these neighbors and a tree.
These neighbors took over the Facebook group that our community used to share news. Whereas before the page was mostly a collection of people mentioning when their AC repair technician was going to be parked in the shared driveway, it became a litany of grievances ranging from who didn’t bring their empty recycling bin in fast enough to who wasn’t helping with putting up holiday decorations. As a result, most people kept to themselves. About two years ago, the offending couple sold their home and left.
As with just about every facet of life, COVID has changed the dynamic in our community. Back in June, I ended up going to the mailboxes at the same time as my neighbor from across the drive. We had an extended (socially distanced) chat during which another one of our neighbors stopped by the mailboxes. It was really nice. I suggested that it might be even more fun with adult beverages and camping chairs. We agreed that later in the week, we’d all emerge from our garages at the same time and visit. Thus was born our now weekly community happy hour.
In the midst of everything that is going on, I’ve found that I treasure these hour-or-so-long visits. We sit in a large circle and just chat. We’ve swapped recipes, offered suggestions for good places to get takeout, and shared lots of great stories. I hope this event continues after this era is past.
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?! 