April 2025 Student Spotlight

Tell us about your upbringing and what made you love storytelling.
I come from a music loving family. There’s always music in the house, whether it’s sung, played on our old piano, and through the stereo by way of a record collection that spans from the original Broadway cast recording of “A Chorus Line” to Bach, to Michael Jackson’s “Beat It”.

When I was a senior in high school, my sister shared an up-and-coming artist with me named Kacey Musgraves. From that moment on, Kacey’s music spoke to me. I was moved by her uplifting lyrics that inspired a can-do attitude and how she set music to stories of overcoming great difficulty. Recently, her song “Deeper Well” became my anthem.

“When I turned 27, everything started to change.
Took a long time, but I learned
Its natural when things lose their shine, so other things can glow
I’ve gotten older, now I know
How to take care of myself
I found a deeper well”

What has your experience at the Marxe School been like?
When I enrolled at the Marxe School a year ago, my plan was to enhance my skills in grant writing and dedicate my life to raising money for nonprofits. What I found was, I was more passionate about storytelling and using communications to make improvements in existing policies. I wrote a policy memo for Dr. Lewis’s class and it cemented my interest in advancing disability rights. I would soon learn that great advocacy involves research too. Understanding data strengthens an argument.  Shortly after submitting that memo, I decided to leave a nonprofit fundraising job to enroll at the Marxe School full time. It was a big leap and quite literally, I had found my deeper well. Looking back a year later, I’m glad I did it.

I’m now working as Dr. Lewis’s research assistant and a Marxe Ambassador. I spent this past summer working alongside Dr. Frank Heiland and Dr. Deborah Balk on a federally supported research grant. For the first time, I was able to see the connection between communications and data driven research. Great communication and marketing can lead to a robust collection of data and interview subjects. I love that professors at the Marxe School see all aspects of the New York City area and how this area informs our world.

Now, I’m eager to support new and perspective students as the begin their Marxe journeys. I came to this place with an idea of who I was then, but now, I am eager to begin a new and hone my storytelling skills.