Bio Details Page

LEARNER. TEACHER. ALCHEMIST.

Learning, change, and personal transformation are in everything I do. Over time, I have persistently discovered new ways of helping people be their best selves.

This path/worldview/these passions first led me to the world of academia, where I became a teacher for students with special education needs in New York City, then a principal and administrator. My bachelor’s and master’s degrees in child psychology and bilingual special education, respectively, and doctorate in curriculum development from Teachers College, Columbia University, formed the foundation for this work.

After our daughter was born, with a desire for a more flexible work schedule and a decade long commitment to the anti-violence movement, I shifted from the world of education to nonprofit work. Over the next nine years, as the director of two rape crisis programs in New Jersey, I stepped into the roles of administrator, public speaker, trainer of volunteers, after-hours hotline counselor and coalition builder. I broadened and deepened my commitment to individual and large scale understanding and change around issues of interpersonal violence.

For the past twenty years, I have grown my instructional design, speaking, and coaching firm. My passion is integrating my academic skills with my desire for perpetual learning—from CoachU and Martin Seligman’s Authentic Happiness Coaching Program, Points of You, mindfulness, EFT, and nonviolent communication, to Christina Merkley’s programs, Fundamentals of Interactive Graphics, Magic Marker Mastermind, and Fast and Loose Sketching. I am a past member, and former secretary, of the Board of Directors of the International Forum of Visual Practitioners. My clients in corporate, nonprofit, government and educational settings have included, Daimler, Bosch, the Ford Motor Company, CibaVision, Novartis, McGraw-Hill, Reed-Elsevier, PertroTrin, Siemens Medical, Turner Broadcasting Sales, Inc., Rutgers University, the NJ Juvenile Justice Commission, the Englewood, NJ school district, and the PAST Foundation. My practice spans the globe, with clients in Australia, Canada, England, Jamaica, Singapore, Switzerland, Trinidad, and the United States.

In June 2018, I became the US member of the Bikablo Global Training Team. In less than a year's time, I have shared the Bikablo method with over 100 people on both public and onsite programs, and delivered the session, Integrating Quick & Easy Visualizations into Your Work: Bikablo Thought-Sketching at the 2019 Global Scrum Gathering in Austin Texas and at the  2019 IFVP annual conference. 

All of my projects are designed through a visualizing process that includes deep listening of the needs to be met, understanding the environment in which people work, learning about who is to be served, and the criteria for success/transformation. I create bespoke sessions for people in corporate, government, nonprofit and education environments.