I build a better workspace for the people who help students.

Why I built this

I was the student. First-generation. First in my family to go to college. My mom wanted the best for me and did not have the playbook. When the financial aid letter arrived, no one at my kitchen table knew which offer to accept. I took out external loans I probably did not need, because I did not have someone who could read the letter with me.

I became the practitioner. I have stood in classrooms, auditoriums, libraries, and gyms. I have run one-on-one sessions with students mapping out their futures. I have presented to families on recruiting trips across multiple states, sent handwritten cards to students who needed to know someone believed in them, and celebrated with graduating classes.

I moved into the administrative side. My current role is behind the scenes, in support of the frontline, student-facing counselors who still sit across from families. I see the caseloads from every angle: high school counselors carrying hundreds of seniors, admissions counselors covering whole regions, academic program staff trying to reach every first-generation student on their list. Every counselor I know is being asked to do more with less.

CounselorDesk exists for those counselors. It brings student context, financial aid resources, guided workflows, and drafting support into one workspace so counselors can get to more students without giving up their judgment or care.

Across all of those roles I watched the same patterns: families losing thousands of dollars in aid because a single FAFSA line was misclassified, waitlist letters that got a 30-second skim, counselors with 380 students trying to write meaningful recommendation letters at 11pm. CounselorDesk is built to close the gap between the information counselors have and the action a student needs next. AI supports selected analysis and drafting steps. It is one part of the workspace, not the product by itself.

What I bring

• Financial aid. Title IV regulations, FAFSA Simplification, SAI/EFC mechanics, Professional Judgment authority, verification, R2T4, and the realities of how appeal letters get read at well-resourced and under-resourced institutions.
• Admissions. A former multi-state recruiter at Saint Louis University. Holistic review, the actual time per application, how counselor letters complement teacher letters, and the equity context of caseload size.
• College access. EAOP regional coordinator and policy analyst at UC Riverside, working directly with 3,000+ first-generation and historically underrepresented students across the Inland Empire.
• Data and systems. Currently a Data System Analyst with UCR University Honors. I build the kind of clean, query-able systems that turn caseload chaos into something a counselor can actually use.
• Lived experience. First-generation. I was the student my counselors did not have time to reach.

Where I worked

• University of California, Riverside · 2021–present
  • Data System Analyst, University Honors (Apr 2024–present, hybrid).
  • Project Policy Analyst, EAOP (Aug 2022–Apr 2024). Managed the centralized academic database for 3,000+ first-generation students across 20 regional high schools. Built data analysis and visualization workflows that informed program decisions, and led the social media outreach strategy that raised engagement with participants and their families.
  • Regional Program Coordinator, EAOP (Mar 2021–Jul 2022). Directed academic events including summer residential programs and parent engagement; supported 500 high school students with personalized academic advising; supervised a team of undergraduate advisors.
• Perris Union High School District · Jan 2019–Mar 2021
  • Guest Teacher / Coach / Advisor. Classroom instruction (9–12) across English, math, science, and social studies. Worked with the AVID program on college readiness, led campus tours, and co-advised at the Black College Expo. Assistant baseball coach.
• Saint Louis University · Oct 2016–Jul 2018
  • Admission & Financial Aid Counselor. Managed a four-state recruitment territory (Missouri, Iowa, Michigan, Illinois). Recruited 500+ students through strategic outreach and recruitment events. Used CRM systems for student-record management and recruitment analytics.

About EAOP

EAOP, the Early Academic Outreach Program, is the University of California's longest-running college access initiative. It is part of UC's Student Academic Preparation and Educational Partnerships (SAPEP) portfolio, with a campus team at every UC. EAOP serves first-generation, low-income, and historically underrepresented K–12 students with academic advising, parent and family engagement, summer residential programs, and the day-to-day work of building a path to UC eligibility and beyond. UCR's EAOP works across the Inland Empire, with the same students and families CounselorDesk is built to help.

How I think about CounselorDesk

It is a counselor workspace, not an AI replacement for a counselor. Resources and guided workflows help organize the work. When AI is useful, it produces analysis or a starting draft based on details you provide. The counselor or family reviews, revises, and owns the final decision.

Pro users can keep temporary saved student profiles in their browser for up to 24 hours. When you request AI work, the details needed for that request pass through CounselorDesk to Anthropic. CounselorDesk does not use inputs to train models. Read the privacy posture for the full picture.