about

I am a doctoral candidate working on my dissertation titled: “Live in the Along: Interstitial Pedagogy and Design-Based Research in Refugee Education.” 

My project examines facilitator sensemaking and shifts in research design across two spaces: in particular, a summer program co-designed with refugee students (2017-2024) and a cross-cultural coalition of youth organizing in Chicago. I draw on scholarship around transnationalism, infrastructuring, emergent strategy, and spatial justice to examine how researchers and participants design for: 1) community-based collaborative research, 2) facilitator training in culturally sustaining pedagogy and social emotional learning, and 3) youth-centered/-led learning spaces. I propose interstitial pedagogy as a framework for attending to affective, ambulatory moments that emerge in the interstitial third spaces of design-based research-practice partnerships. Interstitial pedagogy leverages wisdom from organizing and intergenerational learning to notice where and how liberatory praxis is animated. 

I completed my undergraduate degree at Northwestern University studying German and Human Development & Psychological Services in the School of Education and Social Policy. My pronouns are she/her. 

Key words: co-design, culturally sustaining pedagogy, social emotional learning, intergenerational learning, infrastructuring, emergent strategy, spatial justice, transnationalism, youth organizing