A few people have asked me why I leave politics out of my blog. It isn’t because I don’t have opinions–I do–or because I am afraid that my statements would alienate some of my readers–I don’t care. I write this blog because it is part of my recovery. It helps me to process and record what I am learning through therapy. It keeps me accountable to myself and engaged with how I am feeling. That other people find what I write helpful to them in their journeys is something I celebrate. I am glad to know that I can contribute to others’ healing.
When I think about all of the spaces I used to occupy in life, I was performing a character in just about all of them. I was contorting myself into the persona that I thought was most desirable. It was never about or for me. As a result, I lost myself in my various roles.
As I emerge from the major depressive episode that gripped me for over two years, I realize just how important it is for me to stake out spaces where I can simply be myself.
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 eschew politics in my blog also. The toxic nature of political exchange is something I do not tolerate in a civilized environment.
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