My passions lie at the intersection of multiple industries:

coffee, social justice, writing, photography 

Career origin story:

When I was in 6th grade, my teacher asked what I wanted to be when I grew up. I said, “author.”

Four years later, my career choice became “veterinarian.” Because authors don’t make a living, according to my parents back then. (I have since decided that being an author is pretty cool & a completely valid career choice.)

I now have a degree in Zoology, specializing in Animal Behavior & Neurobiology. This has nearly nothing to do with coffee. I say “nearly,” because my degree has helped me in a qualitative way: I can easily digest scientific texts and “translate” that to common-speak. This is something I do daily for coffee companies and in my journalistic work.

I began my coffee career first as a summer roasting intern, then a barista, then I left coffee to save up for opening a cafe, then became a barista again (decided I didn’t want to open a cafe), started & ended a business doing coffee crawls in Chicago, and finally decided to create my own job. I work within the specialty coffee industry with a blend of writing, photography, and marketing consulting. These did not all happen at the same time but I’m happy with where I’m at now.