I’m a writer and researcher living in New Orleans, where I’m deeply rooted in local community and organizing work. For the past five years I’ve been engaged in local and state politics, working as a lobbyist and campaign consultant while also organizing harm reduction efforts, community events, and mutual aid networks. I live with a cat named Rhino, who is, like most cats, kind of dumb and very endearing.

I earned my bachelor’s degree in economics from Southern Oregon University, with additional coursework in computer science and mathematics. During that time, I worked on applied economic modeling projects focused on understanding the community and individual impacts of government action in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis. As a McNair Scholar, I received funding to develop computational models exploring environmental and ecological dynamics in flood-prone regions.

I later entered Ph.D. studies at Indiana University’s Luddy School of Informatics and Computing, where my work focused on complex systems and cognitive science. While there, I had the opportunity to work with Douglas Hofstadter and others in the fields of machine learning, artificial intelligence, and cognitive science. This work led to an internship offer from Los Alamos National Laboratory, which I declined due to ethical concerns about the application of adaptive systems research in military and surveillance contexts.

I subsequently moved into the private sector, where I developed an enterprise risk management program for a financial institution with approximately $1.5 billion in assets under management.

In 2017, I left finance and moved to New Orleans with the intention of becoming a writer. I have never regretted that decision