Jessica is first and foremost an educator. With over 13 years of experience in the classroom, she is the current Lower School Science, STEM, and Technology Integration teacher at Town School for Boys. Here, she built the kindergarten through 4th-grade science curriculum, exceeding the Next Generation Science Standards by including engineering and technology benchmarks. The curriculum also benefited through her graduate school work where she is endorsed in STEM Leadership by NASA. She earned her Master of Curriculum and Instruction from Adams State University, and her B.S. in Neurobiology and Physiology from the University of Maryland, College Park. At Town, Jessica serves on the Learning Leadership Committee. Following the practices of Elena Aguilar, she is a mentor to new teachers, coaches a small group of educators using the Collaborative Inquiry strategy, and co-led full faculty workshops. 

To further quench her curiosity, Jessica also serves on several committees for the California Academy of Sciences. She is a committee member of the Cal Academy’s DEIA initiative. Here she is creating programming for a DEIA training series for the network of 800+ volunteers working with Cal Academy. She is an Ambassador on the Hive Advisory Council, where she assists in membership recruitment, fundraising, marketing, and event planning. She helped lead the successful peer-to-peer fundraising campaign for Claude, the albino alligator’s updated heated rock. She also helped plan Cal Academy exclusive events including a wildflower hike in Point Reyes, a history walk and talk Lands End, stargazing at Sonoma observatory, Outside Lands engagements, and the annual Party After Dark. Several times a month, you may find her in the orange vest as she is a docent-in-training on the museum floor or leading groups on a hike for a BioBlitz with iNaturalist to document plants, animals, and insects for California Biodiversity Day or the City Nature Challenge. 

Since 2016, Jessica has been selected by NAIS to be a Host and Convener for the Asian American Pacific Islander Affinity group for their People of Color Conference. She identifies Lao with Chinese ancestry and is the daughter of refugees. Annually, she and her team create and lead 3-day professional development workshops for 500+ members of the AAPI affinity group. This is a collaborative effort as leaders from all affinity groups meet monthly to understand the goals of that year’s conference, discuss national and local events affecting independent schools, and find ways to support the needs of all affinity groups. Through this process, she has engaged in year-long cohorts to mentor and coach new teachers and build a community for teachers who may feel alone as AAPI in their school communities. When not at POCC, she continues her journey of personal growth and support by attending SEED with a multi-school cohort at San Francisco Day School. 

Jesica lives in downtown San Francisco with her two cats (Marie Curie and Ada Lovelace) and husband Adrian, founder of the legal aid non-profit Open Door Legal. Here she enjoys playing Dungeons and Dragons, knitting a wardrobe of sweaters, testing new gadgets, traveling, and enjoying boba.