About my journey.

I started working to prevent the spread of HIV at the age of 15 by creating fundraisers and prevention messages for my peers.  These experiences lead to my passion to promote and encourage youth advocacy with junior high, high school and college students.  I began conducting research on the effectiveness of  peer-to-peer interventions in 2009 and by 2011, I created a Youth Peer Educator HIV Training program. This program was created to effectively train youth on how to become risk-reduction counselors in both clinical and outreach settings and this was also a way to measure increased knowledge and healthy behavior changes of the Youth Peer Educators.

Since 2011, I have continued to implement this program with my current Youth Peer Educators.  Through this experience, I have had the opportunity to work with youth from all walks of life.  I have spent most of my outreach efforts focusing on youth, including youth of color and queer youth. They are the voices we need to make changes in our community and I seek to create more young leaders to advocate for themselves and their health.

In 2013, I founded Sacramento Peers on Prevention (SacPOP) and became a recognized non-profit organization in 2015!  SacPOP was created to promote prevention messages through social media and to provide educational presentations to youth aged 13-24.

In 2021, I earned my Ph.D. in Human Sexuality at the California Institute of Integral Studies. My dissertation titled, I’m not coming out; you’re just coming in: Examining Black sexual identity formation in sexual fluidity research investigated how Black queer and non-queer identifying people use language to identify their sexuality through capturing sexual histories and perceptions of media depictions of Black sexuality via semi-structured interviews.

Future research will focus on Black sexual identity formation, reproductive justice, sexual pleasure, and sexuality education advocacy. Along with teaching, I aim to make systemic changes to sex education through advocacy as well as supporting anti-racist, inclusive, and pleasure-informed sex ed.

More about my work