Encouraged by a network of forward-looking colleagues, I’m excited to be launching Story U, the culmination of more than two decades’ work with nonprofit organizations on the leading edge of their respective fields — philanthropy, public health, education, art, and international development.
Over the years I have reported firsthand on humanitarian crises in Sudan and Cambodia for Oxfam, and from neighborhoods combating food deserts and gang violence here in Southern California. A versatile, upbeat communicator, I’m equally at home among frontline activists and senior executives, writing op-eds and advocacy training materials one day, annual reports and CEO speeches the next.
I’m also a photographer with an M.A. from New York University’s graduate program with the International Center of Photography. As a Fulbright Scholar I completed post-graduate studies at the University of Cologne, Germany.
For the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, I authored an in-depth collection of grantee stories from around the country highlighting Winning Strategies in the Fight Against Childhood Obesity. For The California Endowment (TCE), I wrote the Healthy Eating, Active Communities Story Bank focused on improving the food and physical activity environment here in California; and for TCE’s long-running publication CenterScene, I’ve contributed 20 cover stories along with numerous other articles and photography. Earlier in my career, in senior communications positions at the J. Paul Getty Trust, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and Oxfam America, I managed public and media relations.
Sylvia Sukop, Posse Foundation volunteer writing mentor, with Los Angeles scholarship recipients (2010).
On the education front: I have served as guest editor and writer for Northridge magazine at California State University, Northridge (including writing/producing video stories), and am currently in my fourth year as a volunteer for the Posse Foundation.
As founder of Boulevard Without Borders, I collaborated with students from 10 Los Angeles high schools to tell the story of the diverse communities along Pico Boulevard, a project presented as part of L.A. County Museum of Art’s L.A. Flash in 2008.
I have also written for The Huffington Post, Flaunt (where I was named one of the magazine’s 10 Notable Writers of the Decade), and the photography journal Exposure. In 2009 I was awarded PEN Center USA’s Emerging Voices Fellowship in support of my first nonfiction book project.
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View past projects related to storytelling for empowerment, impact, and evaluation.
Story U 