My path to becoming a psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner began in education, where I worked with students and families from a wide range of cultural, linguistic, and life experiences. I spent much of that time supporting refugee and immigrant students and saw firsthand how language, culture, trauma, family expectations, and access to resources can shape a person’s ability to feel understood and supported.

Those experiences deepened my interest in mental health and in the ways our environments, relationships, identities, and life transitions affect our wellbeing. They ultimately led me to pursue advanced training in psychiatric mental health nursing.

Today, I provide thoughtful, collaborative psychiatric care for adolescents and adults, with particular interest in working with people whose experiences may not fit traditional expectations of what a family, relationship, identity, or life path “should” look like. This includes queer and gender-diverse people, people navigating perinatal and reproductive transitions, and individuals building lives and relationships outside of conventional norms.

I believe good psychiatric care begins with curiosity rather than assumptions. Your culture, religion or spirituality, language, family structure, relationship structure, gender, sexuality, parenting choices, and lived experiences all matter—but they do not define the whole of who you are. I strive to create a space where you can talk openly about what is happening in your life without having to translate yourself into someone else's idea of what is “normal.”

My approach is trauma-informed, patient-centered, and collaborative. I bring clinical expertise in psychiatric assessment and medication management while also recognizing the importance of sleep, stress, relationships, physical health, environment, and other factors that influence mental health. My goal is to understand the person behind the symptoms and work with you to develop care that makes sense for your life.

My experience as a parent of a medically fragile child has also given me a personal understanding of navigating complex healthcare systems, advocating for care, and living with the uncertainty and demands that can accompany caregiving. That perspective continues to shape the way I listen to patients and families—with compassion, patience, and respect for the expertise that comes from living in your own body and your own life.

There is no single way to be a family, a partner, a parent, a teenager, or a person. There is no single culture, language, religion, gender, sexuality, or life path that defines what a healthy life looks like.

You don't have to fit a template to receive thoughtful mental health care.