Growing up in San Francisco, I saw firsthand both the promise and the failures of urban governance — neighborhoods held together by community trust and initiative, and systems that too often let people fall through the cracks. That tension between what cities could be and what they actually deliver has driven everything I've pursued since.

My entry point was journalism. Learning to translate complex policy and hard news for everyday readers taught me that communication is itself a form of civic action — that how a story is told determines who feels seen by it. I still write, covering politics and culture for student outlets at UCLA and freelancing for national publications including The Nation and the Marin Independent Journal. But somewhere along the way I started asking myself: how do I create more than awareness? How do I create change?

That question led me toward the institutional side of public life. Real progress on entrenched issues — homelessness, resource inequity, bureaucratic inefficiency — requires working both with communities and within the systems that shape them. Last summer, I interned in the office of San Francisco Board of Supervisors President Mandelman, where I worked on constituent services, policy research, and public communications. At UCLA, I lead the Media and Communications department for the Undergraduate Student Association Council and serve in community outreach for Bruins Vote.

I'm building toward a career at the intersection of policy, communications, and community — where the work of government actually meets the people it's meant to serve.