I’m a strategist, designer, facilitator, and endlessly curious person who believes deeply in the power of place and the role it plays in our everyday lives.

For nearly 20 years, I’ve worked at the intersection of people, strategy, and place design—asking questions, finding patterns, bringing different perspectives together, and turning what we learn into places that work better and mean something to the people who experience them.

I’m a both/and kind of person. Analytical and creative. Pragmatic and imaginative. I love a good data set almost as much as a beautiful material palette. Some days you’ll find me in sawdust-covered overalls; others, in a good blazer and statement pumps. I’m drawn to paradoxes, contradictions, and looking at things from every angle—because the most interesting possibilities often emerge somewhere in between. I take my work seriously, but try not to take myself too seriously. There’s room for curiosity, humor, empathy, and humanity in even the most complex work.

Emberroot grew from that same both/and philosophy. I wanted to build a practice—and a life—where meaningful work and life outside of work aren't competing forces, but mutually beneficial ones. Where being a designer, a parent, a maker, a neighbor, and simply a person moving through the world all inform how I see and understand place. And where I could expand beyond any single project type, bringing a more participatory and inclusive lens to the places where people work, learn, heal, gather, and belong.

At the heart of my work is a belief that my role as a designer isn't to have all the answers. It's to create the conditions for better questions, make room for perspectives we might otherwise miss, and bring the expertise to turn what we learn together into something meaningful.

I live in Ada, Michigan with my husband, two kids, and our very old (and very loved) dog, Zoey. When I'm not thinking about places, I'm usually making something—restoring vintage furniture in my garage, working in the garden, or finding another creative project I probably didn't need to start.

That curiosity—the desire to look closer, see things from another angle, uncover potential, and imagine what something could become—is pretty much at the root of everything I do.