Bio

I am a mother scholar, educator, and advocate focused on empowering and imagining futures that sustain and cultivate the learning, growth, and success of minoritized groups in postsecondary education. For much of my career, I have focused most intently on issues that include the development of culturally and linguistically diverse learners in STEM settings, the struggles, assets and possibilities of teachers of Color across the pipeline, and student activism work that transforms institutions toward more equitable and just learning spaces. 

Originally from Hong Kong, I immigrated to the rural outskirts of Illinois as one of a handful of English learners at my elementary school. I began my career in education as a 5th, 7th, and 8th grade science and English Language Arts teacher at KIPP Academy in the South Bronx, NY (under the leadership of co-founder David Levin) as a Teach for America corps member.  Soon after, I joined the Peace Corps and served as an education volunteer, teaching secondary school (integrated science and biology), in Pepease, Ghana. 

I spent a year at the Center for Urban School Improvement (now Urban Education Institute) led by Tony Bryk at the University of Chicago after the Peace Corps and prepared for my masters program at Stanford in 2006-2007. Post-graduation, I was a founding high school dean at KIPP King Collegiate High School in San Lorenzo, California and soon after, I joined Strategic Education Research Partnership (SERP), directing math and science research partnerships in San Francisco Unified School District under the leadership of Phil Daro (co-author of CCSS-mathematics). During this time, I served as a 'boundary spanner' for research-practice projects led by researchers that included Alan Schoenfeld, P. David Pearson, Mark Wilson,  Catherine Snow, Kenji Hakuta, and Jonathan Osborne.

In the early days of the Common Core and Next Generation of Science Standards development, I joined Understanding Language at Stanford and concurrently served as a special assistant in Oakland Unified School District (under deputy superintendent Maria Santos), building on the synergies of language and literacy development found in the new standards. 

In my role as a community advocate for pregnant and parenting students (aka "students with dependents"), I follow a networked community approach in improving policies, structures, and practices to amplify access to resources and power for pregnant and parenting students—in particular, mothers in the academy.  I am also a founder and director of #StudentParentJoy. 

I earned my B.S. in chemistry and biochemistry at the University of Chicago, a M.A. in Policy, Organization, and Leadership Studies at Stanford, and a PhD in Education Policy at Stanford, co-advised by Kenji Hakuta (emeritus) and Jonathan F. Osborne (emeritus).