As the Senior Manager of Research and Strategic Initiatives, Molly enables decision-makers and collectives to translate data, stories, and information from a variety of sources into actionable insights that drive strategy and impact. She is passionate about reshaping educational ecosystems to better meet the needs of students and families and create opportunities for underresourced communities.

Drawing from experience spanning from classroom teaching to philanthropic advising, she brings scholarly rigor and practical insight to advance strategic projects in education and related areas. Molly lives with her wife and two dogs in Seattle, where she enjoys restoring furniture, designing websites, and growing her garden.

Professional Experience

Before joining Centered Advising, Molly spent five years as an education strategy & impact advisor at Building Impact Partners, where she led research for education philanthropy sector clients across the country. There she designed frameworks to measure policy, program, and organizational effectiveness and conducted place- and concept-based educational ecosystem analyses across K-12 and higher education contexts. Beyond client work, she drove internal business development, marketing strategy, and analytics initiatives that strengthened the firm's market position.

Previous roles include Digital Project Manager at Forum One, where she managed technology initiatives for mission-driven organizations, including governance and data visualization projects. Prior to that, she was a program manager for Hack Music LA at the Los Angeles Philharmonic and served as a policy advisor to an elected leader in East Los Angeles. She began her career as an AP Chemistry teacher in South Central Los Angeles, where she developed liberatory STEM teaching practices and facilitated a campaign to raise $250,000 to build a laboratory.

Education

Molly holds a Master's degree in Education Administration and Policy from Loyola Marymount University, where her thesis on democratic involvement in a K-12 environment earned the Exemplary Research in Urban Education Award and the School of Education’s Student of the Year Award.

She earned a Bachelor's degree in Fine Arts with a concentration in sculpture and graphic design from the University of Southern California, where she graduated cum laude.