who I am

I'm a native Virginian and Georgetown University grad who ventured west in 2010 for graduate school at Arizona State University (ASU).  Over the next six years, I learned a lot about psychology, about therapy, and about the human experience.  I learned about the courage and power of vulnerability, my own and that displayed by client after client I encountered.  I grew in my understanding of both the impact of change and the value of acceptance. And I came to truly appreciate that no matter the course of the day, tomorrow the sun will surely rise in Phoenix... and it will be gorgeous.

Education and training

IT started with research..

After graduating from Georgetown in 2007, I worked for a public health firm in Maryland on government-funded research to develop mental health education materials for youth, adults, and providers.  It was important to me that people receive mental health information and services that are founded in solid research.  I continued my research quest at ASU, where I earned a Masters degree in Psychology (2013) and a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology (2016).  At ASU, I worked on a preventive parenting intervention for parents experiencing separation or divorce.  I also researched how parenting impacts young adults' approaches to romantic relationships and the relation between romantic relationships and alcohol use.  And the link that tied all of this together: significant relationships.  I was and am fascinated by how we impact each other as we navigate our lives, and how each major relationship we experience (family, friend, or romantic) impacts how we approach our next relationship.  

...And grew from there

We can learn so much about people and about relationships from research, and yet all people are unique and complex and will always be something of a mystery to those they encounter.  We can never fully understand the experience of walking in someone else's shoes, but I strive to walk with my clients.  And I have loved being a clinician from the moment I started doing therapy in 2011. 

Over the past several years, I have worked with children 3 and up, adolescents, families, adults, and couples across various settings in the Phoenix area (i.e., community mental health, outpatient clinics, university counseling, hospital, and private practice).  I also completed a year-long clinical internship at the Mary A. Rackham Institute at the University of Michigan in 2015-2016 before returning to the Valley and opening my practice.  During my graduate training, I facilitated therapy groups on the following topics: child and adolescent social skills, enhancing adolescents' school engagement, adolescent grief following loss of parent, social anxiety, depression, adult coping with serious illness, parenting after divorce, adult PTSD, mindfulness for chronic pain, and insomnia.  I also gained experience conducting formal psychological and psychoeducational assessments and writing interpretive reports. 

I continue to be actively engaged in the learning process and in 2017 completed an intensive externship in Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy (EFT), an evidence-based therapy that I am delighted to offer in my practice. I have also completed Level 1 and Level 2 Training in Gottman Method Couples Therapy, and I use Gottman Method Couples Therapy in my practice.  

I am a licensed clinical psychologist in Arizona (license number 4828) and a member of the Arizona Psychological Association (AZPA).  I was the co-chair of AZPA's Early Career Psychologists' committee, a group dedicated to promoting the development of local psychologists in their first decade of practice, from 2017-2019.