Hi! I’m Rachel. I’m a mom of two, small business owner, and community engagement professional based in the greater Milwaukee area.
I’m originally from the suburbs of Chicago, but have lived across the Midwestern United States (IL-WI-NE-KS-OH-WI). In my 20s, I spent many of my summers working and traveling in Latin America, primarily in the Dominican Republic and El Salvador. I also went to graduate school where I focused on public rhetoric, writing studies, and community engagement. I worked as a professor at the University of Dayton and then the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where I was promoted with tenure in 2020. Alongside my teaching career, I had the opportunity to build a community storytelling project from the ground up with an incredible group of promotores de salud (Latine health promoters). That project focused on community health promotion and reproductive justice and was called, Cuentos de Confianza (Stories of Trust/Confidence).
I have always been interested in the spaces in between things—cultures, languages, institutions, & communities. Much of my past work focused on looking at how people work across linguistic and cultural differences to connect and how to challenge bias in the ways we think about “good” and “bad” language in specific contexts. I wrote a book about my work and research in the Dominican Republic and how healthcare contexts can be a space to learn from and prioritize patient and community discourses of health. My more recent research focused on how promotores de salud create confianza (trust) between institutions and communities.
I pivoted out of academia in 2024 to build Confianza Collective, a storywork studio that creates space and support for small business owners and community-rooted leaders to write founder stories that feel authentic and aligned with their next chapter. Our bilingual team hosts quarterly writing workshops and an online story lab program to support writing in English and Spanish. I also host a free monthly writing group for community-engaged leaders at a coffee shop in Milwaukee.
Starting in April 2026, I’ll be a program manager with the Community Outreach and Engagement (COE) Office at the Medical College of Wisconsin Cancer Center. I'm looking forward to supporting and advancing the COE programs and partnerships while deepening my work with community engagement across the region.
