On my mother’s side, I come from a long line of nurturers. My mother was an early childhood educator, caregiver for the elderly, and is a present, loving, and nurturing mother, daughter, wife, sister, aunt, and friend. She taught me how to love. My father was a chemist, systems’ leader in environmental regulation, and is a seeker of knowledge and understanding. He taught me how to learn. They are both spiritual beings who continue to grow and develop in making sense of this wild and wonderful world.

I have found a professional path that synthesizes my mother’s nurturing and my father’s empiricism….but I’m jumping ahead of myself.

Like many, my professional story starts with a few false starts. In 2004, I took my nerdy and naive self to The College of William & Mary with the intention of being a marketing major. It didn’t take long to discover that my business classes were my least favorite classes. I didn’t feel connected to the content or the community. At the same time, I was volunteering in the childcare center affiliated with a domestic violence shelter. I learned about the impact of trauma on development and heard a clear call to find a professional path that would allow me to help children, women, and families impacted by abuse and trauma.

20 year old me thought that, because I liked working with children, that I should become an elementary school teacher, and the state of Virginia thought that one should not major in Elementary Education alone, but should double major. So, I chose Psychology as my 2nd major. I loved my Psychology courses and could see then, that to help humans, I needed to better understand why we do what we do.

After a year in the School of Education and a semester of student teaching, a kind and wise mentor gave me this feedback, “Diana, though you have the skills to be a good teacher, I’m not sure if that’s what you really want to be. You seem to be happier in the back of the class with the 1 or 2 children who were struggling rather than in the front of the class teaching all children.”

At the same time as this much needed feedback, I received a scholarship from the Honors College that allowed me to conduct a research project (on anything, anywhere, within reason and with proper approvals). What a gift. At that age, I still knew very little, but I had a mentor, Dr. Janice Zeman, who knew much more. I told her I wanted to go to Sub-Saharan Africa to help support orphans. Together, we developed a research project on emotional development and regulation that allowed me to spend a summer in rural Ghana, working and living in an orphanage while also trying to figure out how to be a cross-cultural researcher at the age of 20.

My time in Ghana and the lessons I learned warrant their own short story, but for now, I’ll note that the trip planted seeds of cultural humility, curiosity, and respect that continue to grow. Following Ghana and the heart-to-heart with my teaching mentor, I dropped Education as a major and went full force into Clinical Psychology.

The summer before my senior year, I had the honor of being chosen as an Americorps volunteer at Camp Wediko, a summer camp for youth with emotional and behavioral challenges, My summer in the mountains of New Hampshire singing camp songs and implementing evidence-based therapeutic strategies with kiddos 6-17 who had mental health struggles cemented my desire to learn more about how to help those hurt by trauma and abuse.