I grew up in San Dimas, California, which is the home of fictional celebrities, Bill & Ted, of Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventures. My childhood was great — the city is close enough to Los Angeles for some worthwhile field trips. After graduating from high school, I pursued my love of politics and studied at George Washington University, in Washington, DC.

I did a stint on Capitol Hill, with a presidential campaign and the AFL-CIO, before returning to California to work as a major gifts fundraiser at UCLA in 2007. It wasn’t the best time to work as a fundraiser; in 2008 the economy tanked but I loved my coworkers and being at a university. In 2008, I volunteered on the “No on 8″ campaign to protect marriage equality for gay people in California. It didn’t work out the way I had hoped, but it did ignite my passion to lead and create change, which ultimately led me to get my dual degree at Duke in public policy and business.

After two years here, I can say that Duke has been a great fit. Team Fuqua is embedded into the school’s culture and the professors have created an incredible learning environment. Most importantly, the talk about transformational and global leadership is about as real as you can get. Over the past year, I served on the cabinet of 2 clubs, visited the headquarters of some of the world’s most famous companies, crisscrossed China with my classmates, and worked in strategy consulting for Accenture in East Africa. This year, I want to develop personally and plan to go white water rafting, climb a mountain with BOLD, study in South America and hike Machu Picchu. How many other business school students can say they did that?

Fuqua Activities: I’m involved with Fuqua Pride and the High Tech Club. I seek to develop and transform myself professionally and personally and to take risks. In my free time, I enjoy hiking, Taiko drumming, traveling, cooking and doing laundry since I didn’t have a lot of time to do that my first year.