Seventeen years in Bay Area tech taught me one thing: software can change lives. Get the right app in front of the right person at the right time, understand what they need and the goals they have, and you can absolutely empower them to reach it.

I originally studied psychology to understand human behavior. Moved into marketing for the same reason. Consumer research, testing what works and what doesn't, what actually makes someone act. I did that for companies large and small and eventually started building my own apps. Then my son was born and everything else became background noise.

He's almost four. On the spectrum and gifted. When he wants affection he doesn't face me. He turns around and backs into me, waiting for my arms to close around him. I've learned to recognize that signal. In that moment I become his comfort, his armor. His Iron Man suit.

The last three years have also been the loneliest of my life. I knew from my psychology background that neuroplasticity peaks early, so I raced to get him help. Therapy reps, consistency, every single day. What I wish I had was someone who could tell me what's around the corner. Not an expert carefully choosing their words. A parent. Someone whose kid is just a little older but like mine, who could show me what it looks like from the other side of the hill.

My son is now thriving. His knowledge of world geography is savant-level. Name any country and he'll point to it on the globe. There are still hard days. But I've learned more in three years than I ever expected, and I want to give that forward.

At scale. With real impact. It starts with making connections. That's why I'm building this.

I notice the same thing over and over in the families I work with: one parent solving a problem alone that another parent across town already solved a year ago. They have the answer for each other, but they've just never met. Closing that gap is why Spectrum Connect exists. My co-founder Doug knows that gap as a parent who has lived it. I know it from the clinical side.

I trained as a researcher and I work as a behavior technician inside Sacramento homes. The pairing is deliberate. The science can tell you why two children with the same diagnosis develop along completely different paths. A therapy session shows you what that means for a family at 5 PM on a Tuesday. Most people in this field see one or the other. I'm built to see both.

I studied Cell Biology at UC Davis and worked in Dr. Janine M. LaSalle's lab, affiliated with the UC Davis MIND Institute. There, I co-authored a peer-reviewed review in Environmental Epigenetics on environmental influences and DNA methylation in autism. The paper argues that autism is not one thing, and that the environments children grow up in shape how it unfolds. Since 2024 I've worked as a Board Certified Autism Technician. It's slow, patient work. Weeks can pass before anything visibly changes. And then a nonverbal two-year-old I'd been working with looked up and said "I want book." Three words. The line between before and after for his family.

The parents I work with are holding all of it themselves. Translating between BCBAs, pediatricians, and IEP teams. Researching at midnight.

I want to be the person who sits in both rooms: the lab and the living room. Someone who keeps one parent from working out alone what another parent or another study already knows.