Somatic Experiencing Practitioner · Occupational Therapist · Certified Nutrition Specialist · Athens, GA
To six different schools, three distinct board exams, and 26 healthcare facilities across 12 states.
The search wasn't only professional: it was deeply personal.
I didn't yet know I had lost touch with my own body — but I was about to find out.
I earned a bachelor's in Dietetics more than 20 years ago. Although I studied hard and graduated summa cum laude, I couldn't see how this field translated into tangibly greater health, or how I could wake up excited to do this work every day. Human beings are elegantly complex — I wanted to go beyond nutrition.
I wanted to help people, and I also wanted to find my way out of the depression and anxiety that hummed in the background of my inner life. Where was the intersection of my purpose and my health?
So I searched. I worked a crummy retail job to pay the bills, studied as many forms of dance as I could, and went to flight school — becoming a private pilot. My idealistic young self thought I would end up providing air deliveries of sweet potatoes in a food relief program.
Eventually I found occupational therapy (OT) and completed my first master's degree at Washington University in St. Louis. OT was a natural fit — inherently holistic, considering the entire context of a human life. I loved being able to spend significant time with patients, each one a unique example of what it means to be human, to struggle, to reclaim independence, and to find their way.
My career as a traveling occupational therapist across the US gave me an uncommon view of our healthcare system in all its complexity. I worked in 26 different healthcare facilities — hospitals, skilled nursing facilities, inpatient rehabilitation, home health, outpatient rehabilitation, acute mental health wards, and long-term acute care facilities.
These contract positions showed me many triumphs and tragedies of care. And it gave me a gnawing desire to get on the side of prevention — to catch people before the breakdown, the diagnosis, the loss of function and purpose.
An up-close look at the toll on providers and leaders in healthcare showed me how ubiquitous burnout had become.
The cost of constantly adjusting to new jobs, locations, workplace cultures, documentation systems, houses, and roommates led to my own personal burnout crisis. I hit pause, crawled up to Washington state, and spent nine months completing an immersive adult wilderness education program — learning bird language, animal tracking, primitive fire-making, shelter-building, and survival skills.
The most important survival skill I learned, though, was how to be with myself.
The power of awareness, stillness, and connection I found in that wilderness community inspired a deliberate wander through science and clinical studies that took years to complete. With each new field of study, I found a new curiosity and another layer of the same answer.
At the Soma Institute of Structural Integration, I learned a form of bodywork that aligns fascia — and fell in love with the intelligent reorganizing capacity of the human body — a capacity that is magnified by our conscious attention.
A second master's degree in Integrative Medicine and Nutrition at George Washington University revealed the power of mind-body connections and food as medicine — and led to my Certified Nutrition Specialist credential and a license to provide Medical Nutrition Therapy in North Carolina.
The three-year professional training program with Somatic Experiencing International taught me the trauma resolution techniques that put the body at the centre of healing, tapping the profound wisdom of the nervous system.
In every exploration, I found the same thing: the body holds the answers we seek.
I offer a completely unique integration of occupational therapy, applied physiology, nature connection, bodywork, trauma resolution, integrative medicine, and nutrition that offers a complete response to human depletion and provides recovery that no single discipline could offer.
My intention is to make this rare view available to the people who need it.
Today I work with individuals navigating burnout and reconnection, and with organizations committed to addressing it at its root.
Your body is jaw-droppingly beautiful. It is capable of communicating exactly what it needs — and reconnection with that gloriously intuitive, innate wisdom is possible.
If any of this resonates — if you recognize yourself or your team in the exhaustion, the searching,
or the quiet sense that something more is possible — I would love to hear from you.
Bachelor of Science in Dietetics. University of Georgia. Summa cum laude. 2006.
Master of Science in Occupational Therapy. Washington University in St. Louis. 2011.
Graduate of ‘The Immersion.’ Wilderness Awareness School. 2018
Graduate of the Soma Institute of Structural Integration. Certified Soma Practitioner. 2020
Master of Science in Health Sciences. Integrative Medicine / Nutrition. George Washington University. 2024.
Completed Somatic Experiencing International's 3-year practitioner training. SEP. 2025
Graduate of The Nutrition and Herbal Collective's Supervision Program. 2025