In college, I studied the impacts of economic, racial, education and gender inequality in Detroit. In my last year of college, I photographed individuals experiencing homelessness in Detroit for my senior photo essay — that’s where my passion for the topic began. However, before I made the commitment to journalism, I experimented with many different paths in college: I was an assistant teacher at an alternative high school for pregnant and mothering teens in Detroit; I was a tutor and poetry instructor at a foster and adoption agency; I was a volunteer teacher at a children’s hospital; and I was an art instructor at a summer camp for kids with disabilities. While none of those future careers stuck, the images of social injustice did. After I graduated in 2013, I took a job at a very small newspaper in Port Huron, Michigan. At The Times Herald, I wrote about homelessness, poverty, the opioid epidemic and sexual assault. Following an investigation into clergy sexual assault, the Michigan Senate Judiciary Committee chairman proposed a bill to address a loop-hole in Michigan’s sexual assault laws. In 2017, I moved to California where I now write about homelessness, and how poverty and public health intersect. Since starting at The Desert Sun, I launched an in-depth project about homelessness, which included surveying 200 homeless individuals to build my own community health database. I surveyed nearly 400 women at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival about sexual harassment. I’ve participated in a handful of fellowships, and a grant-funded multi-newsroom project that took a deep look at California’s medically uninsured. Now, as the coronavirus pandemic rages on, I predominately report data-driven stories analyzing pandemic policy decisions.