Why educational equity became my work
I navigated the college application process largely on my own — no private counselor, no family playbook, no one to tell me which APs to take in 9th grade or how to write an essay that sounded like me. I was a Minds Matter mentee, a Matriculate advisee, a QuestBridge Prep Scholar and Finalist. I found every program that existed for students like me, and I used all of them.
I'm originally from Queens, New York, and my perspective has also been shaped by living in Romania and Hawaii, and by constantly moving between different communities. That experience made one thing clear early: talent is everywhere, but access is not.
Those programs changed my trajectory. They got me to Johns Hopkins as a Hodson-Gilliam Scholar, into MIT MITES, into pre-college study at Columbia, and into dual-enrollment coursework through Stanford and UPenn — and ultimately to building a startup in college. But I also know how lucky I was to find them — and how many students with equal ability never do.
Now, as a Matriculate Advising Fellow, I sit across from those students every week. STRIDE is my attempt to scale what one advisor can do — to make personalized, persistent college guidance available to every student, everywhere, for free.
I'm especially drawn to work at the intersection of educational equity, technology, and new opportunity — the kind of work that lets me keep learning, keep building, and keep opening doors for other students.