I am a former track and field athlete at East Carolina University where I received my bachelors in Public Health degree while minoring in sociology and psychology. During my time at ECU, I served as an intern at the Intergenerational Community Center where I helped develop health and youth development programming, and marketing materials for the organization. One of my main contributions to community was my co-founding of the Black Student Athlete Organization that served to build community amongst Black student athletes and allies to promote social justice. After East Carolina, I went on to attend Emory University where I received my Masters in Public Health in Behavioral, Social, and Health Education Sciences. During my time in the program I served as a graduate research assistant in two capacities, a program assistant for my departments mentoring program, and a teaching assistant for both undergraduate and graduate courses. Now, in my PhD program in the Family Science Department at the University of Maryland, I have been heavily engaged in both qualitative and quantitative research at the BLACK Health Research Lab and the Consortium on Race, Gender and Ethnicity. For service to the University community, I am the founder of the Association of Black Public Health Students at UMD and serve on the Coalition for Anti-Racism, Equity and Inclusion in the Department of Family Science. In the summer of 2024, I completed a fellowship under the Kennedy Krieger James Ferguson RISE Program. While in this program I created my own research project to present at the end of the summer at the CDC Expo. I will also be able to use this project as my first, first-author publication. My research interests fall into three main umbrellas: 1.) the racial ethnic identity development of Black youth and young adults, 3.) mental health outcomes for Black youth and young adults, 3.) contextual factors in schools and communities that support healthy identity development of Black youth and young adults. Within this research I also have a special interest in Black student athletes.