About
Welcome to my blog!
For those of you who don’t already know me, here’s a little background:
I was born in Madison, Wisconsin, and grew up in the nearby suburb of Middleton. I graduated from Middleton High School in 2000.
That’s me at 1 month old with my grandma Jeanette.
A skyline view of Madison. Credit: Flickr Madison group.
Yup, I had glasses at 11 months old, maybe earlier.
I’ve always been into art but haven’t had much time to draw or paint lately.
I started playing violin at age 9.
My wonderful family: Mom, Dad, older brother Aaron, and grandparents Sam and Fay.
After graduating, I moved to Evanston, Illinois (just north of Chicago) to attend Northwestern University. I completed my bachelor’s degree in journalism with a minor in the Integrated Arts program and my master’s in journalism in spring 2004.
An aerial view of the Evanston campus. I was also downtown for grad school.
Go Wildcats!
During college and the summers between school, I interned at various newspapers around the country: The St. Petersburg Times and Orlando Sentinel in Florida, the Capital Times in Madison, WI; and the Medill News Service in Chicago and Washington, D.C. (correspondent for the Cap Times and Great Falls Tribune in Montana).
After one last internship at Newsday in Long Island, N.Y., I took a job as a reporter for the Charlotte Observer in Charlotte, NC. I spent a little over three years there, covering education from the S.C. office, regional news from Gaston County and general assignment for the Metro desk. I also occasionally contributed to the paper’s Spanish blog.
Outside of my full time job, I taught English/writing courses at Central Piedmont Community College and English as a Second Language for the YMCA and Latin American Coalition.
Downtown Charlotte. The Observer’s main office is the white building just to the right of the football stadium.
Here’s my husband, Seth, who I met a couple of months after moving to Charlotte.
In June 2007, I took a six-month leave of absence to study Spanish in Mexico as a Rotary International Cultural Ambassadorial Scholar. It was an amazing experience that continues to help me as I report on immigration and Latino issues in the U.S. Thank you Rotary!
After another half a year at the Observer, Seth and I decided to move to Philadelphia. I found a job covering the city of Camden, demographics and immigration for the Courier-Post in South Jersey. Seth writes code for Comcast’s Fancast web site. We got married at the Camden Aquarium in Aug. 2009, bought a house a few months after that and settled into the Graduate Hospital neighborhood. In spring 2010, I went out on my own as an exercise instructor, starting a company called Philly Dance Fitness. As much as I love teaching dance, journalism is still my mainstay. In Sept. 2010, I moved from the Courier-Post to the Jewish Exponent in downtown Philly.
