The mission is personal.
I grew up watching young people — people who looked like me — be systematically excluded from the futures they deserved. Not because of capability, but because of access: to technology, to mentors, to the belief that a career in tech was even possible for them.
That experience became the question that drove my research: how does the way we design technology either open or close doors for marginalized youth? And more importantly — what can we do about it?
"Career identity isn't just about knowing what job you want. It's about believing that future is available to you."
My PhD work at IIT Institute of Design focused on adaptive technology as a lever for expanding career possibility for young Black students. North Star is the platform that came from that research — a living prototype that puts the theory to work.
L.E.T. Design Innovate is the ecosystem I built to sustain this work beyond academia. It brings together research (L.E.T. Design), technology development (JIL Software Solutions), and direct community impact (Jerome Burke Foundation) into one integrated cycle.
The goal isn't research for its own sake. It's research that becomes tools. Tools that become opportunity. Opportunity that becomes identity. And identity that feeds back into reimagining what's possible.
I'm always looking for universities, educators, funders, and community organizations who want to build that cycle together.