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I started riding horses competitively when I was 8 years old. I was fortunate to get coached by a Grand Prix level rider right from the start immediately setting me on a path towards becoming a professional rider with the ultimate goal of eventually competing in the Olympics. For 13 years, I traveled all over the country competing in elite national competitions. It was both a great and challenging way to grow up! The summer before my freshman year of college, I had been doing well and was starting to compete at a higher level on a horse that would go through the jump for me if he couldn't go over it. My coach at that time said it was time to get a horse I could "win on". For the next few months, on that new horse, I didn't make it around a single course of jumps. My confidence and motivation deteriorated each time I landed on the ground. Finally, at the last horse show of the summer, I was thrown face first into a jump. After that, I took a break from riding to recover and figure out if I wanted to continue pursuing my life's dream.  At this point, my family had our own farm and we had several horses, so it was a big decision to consider. I decided to keep riding, got a new horse and a new coach, and rode for 3 more years. But I was never the same fearless rider I had always been so I decided to finally leave that life and identity behind. During college I became fascinated by psychology and human behavior. My first interests were the psychology of marketing, social psychology, and behavioral psychology. But, when I heard about the field of sport psychology, it felt like everything clicked into place and a new dream was born. 
 Since beginning my graduate studies in 2003, I have spent years studying high performance, mindset, leadership, and team culture from multiple angles and fields in order to support the coaching and consulting I've done for over 20 years with individuals and teams/organizations in sport and other performance domains and settings. I'm fascinated by what we have learned and continue to learn from interdisciplinary science about what it takes to consistently perform at a high level individually and as a team. I'm also a "student of the game" working every day on training my mind and honing my leadership skills to show up as my best self for those I work with and impact. I have been extremely fortunate throughout my career to have a multi-faceted background and understanding of the psychology of performance that I combine with my experiences working in high performance sport and studying expert performance and teams in order to help clients more consistently align performance with goals, values, and potential.
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Experience and Credentials:
​Certified Mental Performance Consultant© (CMPC) administered by the Association for Applied Sport Psychology (AASP)
VP Research & Innovation and Master Coach Valor Performance (2019-present)
Voice in Sport (VIS) Expert (2021-present)
Mental Performance Coach Golf & Body NYC (2018-2020)
Director of Mental Performance G2 Academy  (2019-2020)
Mental Performance Coach Softball Canada Senior Women's National Team (2014 - 2020)
Associate Professor in Sport, Exercise, and Performance Psychology & Coordinator of Sport Psychology Services for Barry Athletics - Barry University (2013 - 2017) ​
2010 PhD in Educational Psychology, Major Sport Psychology, Florida State University (FSU)
2006 Certificate in Program Evaluation, FSU
​2006 Certificate in Measurement & Statistics, FSU
2005 MS in Educational Psychology, Major Sport Psychology,  FSU
2002 BA Psychology, The College of New Jersey
Thesis: The effects of perfectionism and perceived stress on burnout in coaches
Dissertation: Be a performance enhancement consultant: Enhancing the training of student sport psychology consultants using expert models
Graduate Research Assistant: Researched expert performance in SWAT police officers and critical care nurses under the direction of world renowned cognitive psychologist Dr. K. Anders Ericsson, Dr. Paul Ward, and Dr. David Eccles