The power of
building
together.

Twenty years asking the questions that matter — and building what the answers require.

I am an institutional leader, political scientist, and educator who brings people and institutions together to expand opportunity. Across my work at Rice, Yale, Princeton, and the University of Pennsylvania, I have led strategy, built partnerships, taught, and shaped organizational cultures. One question connects that work: How can we work together — especially across difference, power, and pressure — to expand opportunity for the people and communities we serve?

Some of my most meaningful work has happened where institutions and communities meet: where a university connects with its city, where a business invests in a neighborhood, or where a community college and an Ivy League institution combine their strengths to create new opportunities. These partnerships depend on the same things that matter within institutions: trust, a voice in shaping the work, and a shared commitment to what comes next.

At Wharton, that has meant building the Penn–CCP Entrepreneurship Academy with the Community College of Philadelphia, Founders in Philly with JPMorgan Chase, and Curriculum for Champions for Financial Legacy with the Shawn Carter Foundation, as well as co-founding Penn & Philly 250 and the Wellness Empowerment Project with Penn Medicine. My experience also includes founding Princeton's Presidential Pre-Doctoral Fellowship Initiative, serving as Dean of Berkeley College at Yale, and helping lead The Tenure Project, a national initiative supporting junior business faculty.

I hold a PhD and master’s degree in political science from Rice University and a Bachelor of Business Administration from Baylor University. My research examined how deliberation shapes who participates and who is heard. Those questions continue to inform how I lead, write, and speak about collaboration, the power of partnership, and what it takes to build across the lines that too often keep people and institutions apart.