Hi!

I build things that help people make wiser choices about school, technology, and the lives they want to live. 

I’ve spent my career in two worlds that don’t always talk to each other: education and technology.

I’m nearing year 30 of teaching history, guiding teenagers through complex ideas from race to revolutions to how to write a sentence that actually says something. I also coach track and field because nothing teaches grit like trying to clear a bar or throw something heavy.

Outside the classroom, I’m the founder of Truth Bridge AI, a research and data company that helps students find colleges where they’ll thrive. I’ve built machine learning tools, counseling systems, and whole frameworks that untangle the college process, especially for families who have been ignored or underestimated.

Before that, I ran Bridge to College, and now Navega, where I work 1:1 with students and families, blending executive functioning, research, equity, and design thinking. I don’t believe in gatekeeping. If I learn something, I build a system so someone else can use it.

I’m currently pursuing doctoral work on organizational change, equity, and digital humanities at USC. My academic background includes time at the University of Chicago (MA), NYU (BS), and UCLA (MA) and professional work at Stanford where I specialize in race, technology, institutional design, and weird human behaviors that shape them.

Recently, I launched Taller Hoy, a workshop and creative space for community, learning, and design. It’s where my worlds meet: teaching, research, equity work, making, coaching, and the joy of building things with and for people. It’s the space where I test ideas before they turn into tools, companies, or algorithms.

I care deeply about making things clearer, kinder, and more just, whether it’s a lesson plan, a matching algorithm, or a system that helps a 15-year old finally understand their own strengths.

When I’m not teaching or building, you can usually find me running, listening to something with a strong beat, coaching kids through their footwork, rearranging my house for the 17th time, or laughing loudly with my son who is the center of everything.

This space is where I write about the questions that keep returning to me:

How do we make better decisions?

How do we use technology as a tool for liberation, not surveillance?

And how do we build systems that actually serve the people in them?

If you’re curious about any of that, you’re in the right place.

• V