A little more about me — and what I bring to this campaign.

A few people have asked about my background, my education, and what I’ve done professionally before deciding to run for Ward 10. So, I thought I’d share a little more about the path that brought me here.

I have spent the majority of my adult life working toward one broad goal: helping build healthier, stronger and more resilient communities.

That path started early.

I studied Environment and Resource Studies at the University of Waterloo, but I was never particularly interested in learning only from a lecture hall. When I wanted to understand glacier retreat and a changing climate, I enrolled in a field program and went to Alaska to study glaciers and glacial change on the ground. As an undergraduate, my curiosity also took me to Hawaii to study plant diversity and to China, where my research focused on giant panda conservation. I was fortunate to be recognized three years in a row as one of Canada's Top 25 Environmentalists Under 25.

I went on to earn a Master of Climate Change from the University of Waterloo, specializing in climate impacts, adaptation and vulnerability.

Since then, I've built a career around taking complex challenges and asking: What can we actually do about them?

Over the past decade, I have worked with municipalities, Indigenous organizations, federal and provincial governments, researchers, industry, community organizations and practitioners across Canada. My work has included municipal planning and climate resilience, infrastructure, natural resources, community capacity building, policy, research, public engagement and translating evidence into practical action.

I've worked for the Ontario Centre for Climate Impacts and Adaptation Resources, where I helped Northern Ontario municipalities prepare for climate change; Natural Resources Canada, where I supported a national $18-million capacity-building program; and today I am a Project Manager with the Climate Risk Institute, leading projects that bring governments, communities, industry and other partners together to solve complex problems.

I've managed budgets, projects and teams; facilitated rooms full of people with very different perspectives; designed national and international learning initiatives; written technical reports and decision-making tools; worked directly with municipal staff and senior government officials; and helped turn research and big-picture ideas into things people can actually use.

Most recently, that included designing and coordinating a week-long Canadian learning exchange for 22 senior government officials from the Philippines focused on climate adaptation, governance and implementation in British Columbia. I've also helped develop national practitioner networks, coordinated major professional forums, and managed the development of more than 200 Canadian climate adaptation case studies.

And throughout my career, Sudbury has been part of that story too.

I've served on the board of ReThink Green Sudbury and participated in the City of Greater Sudbury's Community Energy and Emissions Plan work. My professional life has given me the opportunity to work with communities across Canada, but it has also reinforced how much I care about the community I call home.

I share all of this not because I think a list of credentials automatically makes someone a good Councillor. It doesn't.

But experience matters.

I know how government works. I know how to manage projects and budgets. I know how to research an issue, ask difficult questions, work through competing perspectives, build partnerships and move from an idea to implementation. And I'm comfortable admitting when I don't know something and doing the work to find out.

Perhaps most importantly, I've always been driven by curiosity and by the belief that we don't have to simply accept problems as they are.

That student who didn't want to learn about disappearing glaciers from a PowerPoint and instead went to Alaska to see them for herself is still very much who I am today.

I want to understand things. I want to get involved. And I want to make them better.

That's the ambition, energy and experience I hope to bring to City Hall as your Ward 10 Councillor.

And as this campaign continues, I hope you'll keep asking questions—not only about what I believe, but about who I am, what I've done, and how that experience would translate into better representation for Ward 10.