​What's my experience outside of graduate school?
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​I taught toddlers (18 months - 3 years of age) for three years at the University of Michigan North Campus Children's Center. I've also nannied extensively, and love watching those kids grow as they experience school themselves.
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Much of my outlook on education and policy is also informed by my time as a youth worker, creating and facilitating civic engagement, service learning, and community art curriculums for teenagers with the Ann Arbor YMCA.
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I recently consulted on qualitative research and curriculum with People Rocket, a human-centered design firm.
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I spent a summer farming and coordinating volunteers with Growing Hope, an urban farm and food access nonprofit in Ypsilanti, Michigan.
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Once upon a time, I provided technical assistance as a "human trainer" for the Institute of Social Research's LIFE-M Project, which aims to create a massive longitudinal and intergenerational database through the use of machine learning. I've also contributed to work that seeks to understand how the algorithm behind Boston's school assignment process may, alternately, promote equity and exacerbate racial and geographic segregation.
​Poetry
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Occasionally, I write poetry with Emotional Historians - I find that it allows me a more flexible and creative medium than academic writing to reflect and process the social world around me. You can find one at the bottom of the post here, one about my love and frustration with my home state of Michigan here, and some pandemic-mixed-with-research-methods ruminating here.
Baking
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I bake and decorate cakes! Check them out on my instagram where I sporadically upload cakes I've made for friends - @abby.makes.cakes. My favorite bakeries in Michigan are Sister Pie (Detroit), Milk and Honey (Ann Arbor), and Big City Small World (Ann Arbor). My favorite bakeries in Mass are Butternut Bakery (Arlington), Iggy's Bread (Cambridge), Colette (Medford), and La Saison (Cambridge),
​Favorite articles of the Harvard Educational Review
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Over my two years on the board of the Harvard Educational Review, I had the opportunity to work with many brilliant authors and their pieces in the editorial and publication process. A few of the pieces and authors I most enjoyed working with are listed here: ​
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Beyond the Bus: Reconceptualizing School Transportation for Mobility Justice by Sarah Winchell Lenhoff, Jeremy Singer, Kimberly Stokes, James Bear Mahowald, and Sahar Khawaja
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"No Choice Is the 'Right' Choice": Black Parents' Educational Decisionmaking in their Search for a 'Good' School by Linn Posey-Maddox, Maxine Mckinney de Royston, Alea R. Holman, Raquel M. Rall, and Rachel M. Johnson​
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How High Achievers Learn that They Should Not Become Teachers by Zid Mancenido​
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The Mission Project: Teaching History and Avoiding the Past in California Elementary Schools by Harper Keenan
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Above and Beyond Any Other Teacher or Staff: The Invisible Nourishment Work of Bilingual Support Staff by Julissa Ventura
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Curricular Countermovements: How White Parents Mounted a Popular Challenge to Ethnic Studies" by Ethan Chang
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