I work on the human side of AI in the workplace.

I am Anishinaabe, a descendant of the Red Lake Nation. I grew up in Ponemah and Redby on the reservation before moving to the Twin Cities. That background is not a footnote to this work; it is the reason for it. I saw early how change arrives in a community: who it serves, who it leaves behind, and how a place carries its people through it. Growing up on the Red Lake Nation taught me that strong organizations start with relationships, integrity, and cultural awareness. That shapes how I think about every part of human resource development, from how we train people to how we build systems that actually include them.

My path runs through people first. I came to AI through human resource development: recruiting, onboarding, training, and the daily work of helping people find footing when their jobs change. Working in University of Minnesota Career Services, I authored a formal AI usage policy and training framework for the office, alongside SOPs for its core functions. The more I watched AI enter the workplace, the clearer it became that the hard part was never the tool. It was trust, learning, and whether the people doing the work were brought along or pushed aside.

So I do both halves. I co-authored a manuscript on AI adoption and job stress, presented at the 2026 OLPD Student Research Conference at the University of Minnesota, and I build real systems: an AI-powered market-analysis platform, a multi-agent governance layer that keeps a knowledge base honest, and tools that give non-technical teams safe, live access to AI. The research keeps the building grounded in people. The building keeps the research grounded in what actually ships. Training-and-development professionals should be leading the conversation about AI at work, not just reacting to it.