I am a native of Berkshire County in western Massachusetts. Passionate about education, much of my career was spent as a middle school math teacher and high school business teacher until taking on roles in administration and academic coaching. In 2011, I became a licensed middle and high school principal with aspirations of running my own school in the near future, but a bicycle accident that same year left me with a traumatic brain injury and my career as a public school educator came to an end.  

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After my world was turned upside down, I learned to navigate a new way of making strides in healing. It was my Speech Language Pathologist, Katya Bowen, MS, CCC-SLP, CBIS, who told me I might someday educate in a different way. With encouragement from my medical team, the Brain Injury Association of Massachusetts (BIA-MA), friends and family, I began doing speaking engagements to various audiences on the topic of brain injury.  I have been recognized for providing high quality, informative, and heartfelt presentations with a clear ability to captivate my audience by weaving in my personal TBI story.  

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In addition to being a keynote speaker for a number of organizations, I have co-authored the best-selling book, Deserts to Mountaintops; Choosing our Healing through Radical Self-Acceptance. I am a contributor to Brain Injury HOPE magazine, a member of the Brain Injury Association of America's Brain Injury Advisory Council, a program leader for LoveYourBrain, and a member of the BIA-USA speaker's bureau. I co-founded the BIA-MA Northampton Brain Injury Support Group and the Berkshire Brain Injury Collaborative, designed to provide professional development to teachers on return-to-learn strategies after a student suffers from a concussion, and which has now become part of BIA-MA.