Vanessa has been a program manager at UCLA and at schools in the Bay Area creating learning cultures of curiosity and inclusion. She has also been faculty, teaching diversity and communication, at UCLA and Koç Üniversitesi. She is an alumna of the University of Michigan with a MA in Cultural Anthropology.
A curious traveler, she has spent time living in Paris and Buenos Aires. She was born in Santa Barbara and enjoys dancing–including salsa, swing, tango, electronic, hip-hop, and blues–, reading fiction, and going to the beach.