I was born and raised in Palm Springs! My family moved to our current home in (what is now called) the Historic Tennis Club Neighborhood when I was four years old and we were surrounded by many vacant lots. I graduated from Cahuilla Elementary School, Nellie N Coffman Junior High School, and Palm Springs High School before leaving home to attend UC Davis. After four years in Nashville attending Vanderbilt University School of Medicine then three years in the Baltimore area for Psychiatry residency, I returned to California for a fellowship in Child Psychiatry at UC Irvine. I married and raised my daughter in Irvine while maintaining a private Psychiatric practice working with children, adolescents, adults, and families.

In 2012 I became trustee of Anderson Children’s Foundation, which gives grants to nonprofit projects serving children in the Coachella Valley. After 12 years of lots of driving between Orange County and the desert, in March of 2024 we sold our home in Irvine and moved full time into our HTCN family home. I’m so happy and thankful to be living in beautiful Palm Springs, working for ACF, running a small nonprofit called How Great Are THY Works, watching my daughter’s musical theatre performances, and playing lots of tennis at Palm Springs Tennis Club. I even love the summers here!