MEGSSS has a warm place in my heart.  My son participated in the math enrichment program during his middle school years, and what he learned in MEGSSS supported him through his undergraduate and graduate degrees in Engineering and Project Management at Washington University in St. Louis.  Giving back to MEGSSS to support the future growth of the organization is my goal.

Watching children learn, explore, and expand their strategic approach to problems is the joy of my job in elementary education.  This fulfillment will be amplified by serving on the MEGSSS board.  Professionally, I enjoy developing social media campaigns to build and recruit while building strong customer relationship management (CRM) procedures and processes to support the communication side of the marketing push.  My personal volunteer time includes working as a Touch Therapy Team with my dog, Riley.  We trained through Duo to visit hospitals, rehabilitation centers, and schools.

After raising two children, I enrolled at WashU and earned my Masters in Nonprofit Management.  As an adult returning to the classroom, I understand how difficult it can be to change gears and focus on new material after a long day at the office, and I appreciate all the professors and support staff who encouraged me through the journey.  I want to be that voice of support for the parents, educators, staff, and students in the MEGSSS program.  

I’m a new addition to the board and excited to be a part of the organization! My high school education is from a small community in northeastern Iowa named New Hampton. My undergraduate and graduate schoolwork is from Iowa State University where I became involved with agriculture, entomology, and molecular biology. After graduation I was hired by an agricultural science startup company, Lavie-Bio and moved to St. Louis. My job involves developing biological solutions to problems facing agriculture to decrease dependency on chemical solutions that have negative environmental impacts. Mathematics is used extensively in my field for statistical comparisons of different treatments, as well as use in bioinformatics (collecting and analyzing large sets of complex data such as genes).

My background is in neuroscience with a focus in neurobehavioral early childhood development and a minor in nonprofit management. I live in St. Charles County with my husband, four kids, a sassy dog, cat, snake, and lizard. My favorite food is good sushi, and you’ll find me in my garden most days. 
From a young age, I knew I wanted to work in the field of neuroscience. My family didn’t believe in me as I struggled with math using the Saxon curriculum. It wasn’t until I met a teacher who loved math, loved to teach math, and used the Singapore method that I discovered I also love math. I later received a gifted diagnosis that finally connected the dots. This led me to change my career path, melding my education in neuroscience with parental outreach and training using social media.

Two of my younger siblings are MEGSSS alumni and have carried that experience with them as they travel the world and enter the medical field. I was elated when my oldest child showed interest, too. Once I realized firsthand as a parent how genuine and committed the teachers and volunteers at MEGSSS were to the wellbeing of their students, I was motivated to volunteer as my hope is to ensure that all children have someone who believes in them and their dreams. By equipping parents with the tools and information they need to navigate gifted and 2e pathways for their students, I hope no child out there will ever feel alone when reaching for a dream.