About Me
What Sets Me Apart
I am an EdD candidate (ABD) in Health Education at Teachers College, Columbia University, with specialized expertise as a Needs Assessment Designer and primary qualitative researcher. My research is deeply rooted in supporting post-9/11 veterans affected by moral injury — a rigorous, human-centered approach built to adapt and scale across other communities whose needs are understudied, misunderstood, or simply inferred rather than asked.
I create diagnostic frameworks that partner directly with my target population to co-explore their unmet needs and perceived barriers. I synthesize these findings into high-impact insights that shape where funding and resources flow, how programs and products are designed, and how policy takes form.
This work is grounded in ecological health models — evaluating how individual, interpersonal, organizational, community, and public policy factors intersect to determine whether a person is resourced well enough to optimize their lived experience, despite adversity. My foundation is built on Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) training, an M.A. in Oral History, over a decade of experience in the mind-body space, and a trauma-informed counseling background (M.A.). This includes actively examining my own positionality and cultural proximity to the populations I study. Importantly, at the core of my work is the conviction that people are the ultimate experts on their own lives. I feel honored to be entrusted with their lived experiences and to play a role in advancing their needs.
I'm currently exploring qualitative research and moral injury SME consulting engagements alongside in-house roles — if something here is useful to you, I'd welcome the conversation!
Areas of Expertise
What I Bring
Methodology, rigor, and relationships that move health equity forward.
Projects Grounded in Literature
Building on peer-reviewed science so your programs start with maximum strategic advantage.
Relational, not just technical
Communities lead; I bring the methodology.
CDC/WHO Standard Evaluation
Aligning program metrics with federal and public health standards.
Outcomes and Executive Clarity
Translating data into clear, high-impact evidence that moves executives, policymakers, product teams, and funders to act.
Specialized Domain Knowledge
Subject matter expertise across veteran wellbeing, crisis intervention, behavioral science, and social determinants of health.
01
Qualitative Study Architecture & Fieldwork
Foundational study design and direct, trauma-informed qualitative research. I build methodologically defensible protocols, design and pilot interview instruments, and conduct the fieldwork myself — long, person-centered 1:1 interviews with hard-to-reach populations, about material most conversations avoid. When an interview surfaces real distress, I recognize it and hold the space — applying clinical crisis training to keep the participant safe without ending the conversation.
I take complex, heavy human stories and organize them into clean, structured taxonomies — the scaffolding that makes translation to decision-makers possible.
Then the part I like most: translating raw lived experience into clear, decision-ready briefings for product, policy, and executive stakeholders — without flattening it into something useless.
02
Needs Assessment & Study Design
Community-based participatory research, where the people affected are partners in the work rather than subjects of it. I build diagnostic frameworks that let a population identify and rank its own unmet needs, and name the barriers in its own words — rather than react to a list someone else drew up.
I work across five levels — individual, relationships, organizations, community and policy — because a need that looks personal is usually structural somewhere.
The output isn't a research report. It's a set of priorities in the population's own order, with the evidence behind them, so that funding, programs, products, and policy follow what people actually said they needed.
03
Subject Matter Advisory: Moral Injury & Complex Life Transitions
Specialized guidance for teams supporting people through identity disruption and moral distress — veterans after service, and any workforce carrying decisions made under constraint. I explain what moral injury is, how it differs from post-traumatic stress, and why that difference changes what resources are worth investing in.
Delivered as briefings, workshops, or written guidance for leadership, clinicians, and frontline teams — including content moderation, trust & safety, and policy teams, where absorbing distressing material is a condition of the job.
04
Program Evaluation & Impact Measurement
Not whether people liked it or turned up — whether it changed anything, for whom, and whether it lasted. I use established public health evaluation frameworks (CDC, RE-AIM) to assess reach into the population actually at risk, effect on the outcome that matters, whether it was delivered as designed, and whether it survived six months.
What you get: an evaluation designed before launch rather than retrofitted, with a defined comparison so an improvement can be attributed to something.
How I Work
01
Literature Review & Landscape Scan
Mapping existing evidence, systemic dynamics, and critical knowledge gaps.
02
Instrument Design & Expert Validation
Developing tailored diagnostic tools vetted by subject matter experts and target population partners — a required check on my own assumptions, not a formality.
03
Pilot Testing
Refining survey tools alongside target participants to ensure cultural alignment, clarity, and measurement accuracy.
04
Ground-Up Trust-Building
Establishing authentic, ethical community partnerships built on mutual transparency and psychological safety.
05
Person-Centered Co-Exploration
Empowering community members to name their own needs, barriers, and solutions in their own words.
06
Cross-Domain Synthesis
Analyzing qualitative narrative across all five levels of the Socio-Ecological Model: Individual, Interpersonal, Organizational, Community, and Public Policy.
07
Stakeholder Communication & Advocacy
Translating findings into policy recommendations, product and design decisions, and sustainable funding for impact.
Delegating agency where it belongs.
Client testimonials
“Worth every minute working together.”
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Jean G.
Senior Art Director
at MAL
“Reliable team of experts.”
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Kimberly A.
Senior Art Director
at REI
“My brand went viral thanks to TF!”
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Nina D.
Senior Art Director
at ALGO