Hello! My name is Betsy and I'm a full stack software engineer. I'm originally from Westwood, MA and I studied Mass Communications at Miami University of Ohio (*not* Florida - classic mixup). During my senior year, my mom lost her battle with cancer, and it made me think a lot about how I wanted to spend my time here. I decided I wanted to spend my time helping others and giving people more opportunities, so I decided to join Teach for America. I taught for two years in a rural community outside Cleveland, Mississippi, then continued teaching for five more years in Brooklyn, New York. Teaching ignited my passion for leadership, educational equity, and social justice. I also learned how to motivate, inspire, and effectively communicate with others.

My interest in coding emerged when I taught an after school program called Kids Who Code, and taught students coding fundamentals using Code.org and Scratch.io. I saw how fulfilled and empowered my students became when they solved a difficult problem, and I decided I'd try to teach myself how to code as well! I attended the Grace Hopper Program at Fullstack Academy of Code, where I learned full stack Javascript using Node, Express, PostgreSQL, React, and Redux. Upon graduating, I was selected to become a software engineering teaching fellow and I mentored students who were going through the program. Coding challenges me to think critically and creatively in order to solve complex problems.

In February 2021, I began my professional engineering career as a software engineer at an EdTech startup called EarlyBird Education, where I got to merge my passion for education with my love for coding. EarlyBird is product that uses voice recognition software to assess a student's reading profile and helps teachers/families identify students who may need reading interventions as early as possible. I primarily worked on building a web based dashboard using React that displays results from the screener and helps teachers/families interpret student results. In December 2021, I began working as a software engineer at HubSpot - a leading CRM software - on the reporting/web analytics team. In my current role, I work cross functionally with a Product Manager and a Product Designer to create a smooth experience for users to enter data into the platform and then analyze their clients' behaviors.