Mobile and Web Developer
I believe in the power of technology to improve people's lives–that's why I became a web developer in the first place. Before becoming a developer, I taught college Spanish for almost twenty years. My experience in the humanities continues to inform my decision-making, and lends me a unique insight into the tech sphere. I utilize my critical-thinking skills to select projects that contribute to creating the type of world that I believe in.
My transition from the field of higher education to that of web development began in 2016, when I completed Udacity's Intro to Programming Nanodegree. Next, in 2018, I completed the Front-End Web Developer Nanodegree, and finally, the React Nanodegree in 2019. I was fortunate to have earned a scholarship through the Grow With Google Initiative to the Front-End Web Developer Nanodegree. During this program, I wrote about my career transition in a Medium blog post (see the link in the "Related" section), and earned another scholarship to the React Nanodegree.
As I was completing my career change, I was also becoming engaged politically. In 2016, I became a part of the movement that sprang up around the presidential candidacy of Senator Bernie Sanders, volunteering to make phone calls to voters and engaging with fellow campaign volunteers. After the election, I remained politically active, volunteering for organizations such as Justice Democrats.
After obtaining my certification in 2019, I began working on ideologically-aligned projects. I started by serving on the team that created BernieBnB–an AirB&B–style application for volunteers of the Sanders 2020 campaign (see the link in the "Related" section). Then, from October of 2020 through December of 2024, I was a mobile developer at the OptOut Media Foundation, where I assisted in the development of OptOut News, a non-profit independent news aggregator app, and also made enhancements to the organization's website. I'm currently working with a team at Progressive Coders Network (see the link in the "Related" section) to revive the app under a new name–Optindie News. We're hoping to relaunch it in late 2026 or early 2027.