I like getting out of my comfort zone and I will always accept a challenge, which has given me the amazing opportunity to work both domestically and abroad, focusing on women’s rights, empowerment, and financial education. Check out what I’ve done below!

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LendUp’s Free Financial Education Series

In the media, I noticed that women are rarely shown as the ones who are in control of their own finances. As the first female founding employee of LendUp and head of financial education, I didn’t want to continue that negative stereotype. I wrote and produced a free-financial education series on YouTube based on the countless conversations I had with customers and the community I worked in, featuring a female lead and taking gender out of the conversation around finances. The team and I used human-centered design and user feedback to create financial education tools that work for consumers. 

• The result: LendUp’s Financial Education platform
• Animated credit education series
• Fast Financial Facts video series (fin. ed. in 1 minute or less)
• Blog

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Redesigning Student Lending: Students Flourish

• Social Venture Plan
• Pitch Deck
• Open IDEO Higher Education Challenge 

I was the lead designer, founder, and author of this project examining the devolution of FICO (credit scores) and the need for college-bound students to have more options for paying for higher education.

Students Flourish is a company that creates a new credit score that empowers students by using data that tracks their behavior and segments customers to find the most competitive loan products, so that students can get ahead in college instead of falling behind and in debt.

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Effecting Investing in Girls: The Case for Financial Education 

• Policy Brief
• Power Point Presentation (speaker at CIES, Washington DC, 2015)

I was the lead researcher and author of this policy brief, case-study, and literature review examining the gap between education level and job placement for women in Latin America. This research examines the huge gap between the educational attainment of women and their participation in the formal labor force. This research also examines the introduction of financial education within Conditional Cash Transfer Programs (CCTs) that are widely popular in Latin America aimed at reducing poverty and promoting education among girls and women.

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Women In It: Celebrating Women Through More Global Visibility 

• Women In It Blog
• App Demo Pitch 

Blog: I was the editor-in-chief at W.I.T (Women in It) exploring the inequities women and girls face around the world, particularly their portrayal in the media, and examining different stories, from both mainstream and alternative news sources, concerning women. We seek to combine a wide-angle view of the most pressing issues in different regions of the world. For this, we incorporate different perspectives and schools of thought in our analysis.

W.I.T App:  This app supports sharing resources so that women can advance their careers and personal lives. This app allows women to connect and share information, based on the idea that success for any women is a success for all women. The WIT app filters information so women can get inspired and support other women in their networks.

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Bias in American Education Systems: Mixed-Methods Approach

• Qualitative Research Project: How American young women from different cultural backgrounds define success in a U.S. context

I conducted a qualitative research study. I wanted to examine the multicultural distinctions in how girls define success and overcome obstacles in the United States. Past studies have examined the U.S context to maintain that gender inequality is rooted in a system that promotes disparities. In understanding the school of thought that has an influence on a girl’s definition of success, it must be noted that researchers have used a traditional gender framework definition to address their research and this approach is more innovative and intersectional.

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The Status of Women In India: Conference on Women, India, and Empowerment from Violence

• Country Report, Conference Overview and 5-year Plan

I was the lead organizer and writer in a conference about women’s empowerment held at the department for Government and Leadership at the University of Pennsylvania in April 2015.