Throughout the different phases of my professional and personal life, I have embraced the importance of contributing to the creation of a more compassionate society.

As a pediatric dentist in private practice, my subspecialty focused on delivery of care to neurodiverse children.  I served as a peer review evaluator and a member of the California state board for my specialty. I also served as president of the Southern California Society of Dentistry for Children.  My years of owning a busy pediatric dentist practice allowed me to develop the organizational and business skills to both manage the practice and nurture my employees’ career development.

After I sold my practice in 2016, I entered a 11-month training at the Stanford Medicine – Center for Compassion and Altruism Research for Applied Compassion Training. The capstone project I developed was titled “The Overlooked Participant – A specialized bereavement for family members left at the bedside after medically assisted suicide”. 

For the past 5 years I have volunteered as a FEMA trained instructor for community emergency response teams in California with a concentration in disaster medical operations.  Since relocating to NYC this year, I completed the training needed to join the volunteer NYC emergency response team. Recently I have volunteered with this team assisting victims of the Bronx Fire Twin Parks North West and facilitating the arrival of the asylum seekers from Venezuela at the Port Authority.

Joining the Social Service Board appears to be a natural continuation of my desire to help those less fortunate improve their current situation.