Title: Senior Program Manager- Kilometer Kids & Youth Running

Tell us about your role:

My job includes a wide range of responsibilities including curriculum development and educational resource creation, coach recruitment and training, equipment inventory and management, participant registration and administration, budget management, program evaluation, data analysis, grant writing and reporting, and community outreach.

How did you get into this type of work?

I’m devoted to this work, sports-based youth development, because of the way sports taught me about life. I went on to become a collegiate soccer player, and playing at that level is not the path for everyone, but I know that I would not be the person I am today without the values and life lessons I learned on the field, on the court, on the track, etc. at a very young age. They helped me to be a stronger student, a kinder friend, a harder worker, and just an overall better human. Being an athlete is where I found community, it’s where I learned about the importance of teamwork, resilience, and commitment, and truly how to feel confident in myself.

How does your STEM education help with your day-to day responsibilities?

My educational background is in public health, specifically in health behavior and health education, and this lens has shaped my approach to managing a sports-based youth development program. I rely on the use of the internet, computers, and software programs to conduct many of my day-to-day tasks as a program manager. While I do not build physical structures or machines in my profession, my role requires critical thinking, creativity, and problem-solving skills. Whether I am managing my program’s budget, looking at my equipment inventory, conducting an evaluative site visit, or analyzing post-program survey results, math is a tool that is critical to understanding the sustainability and impact of my program.

Where do you see STEM in sports?

Science helps us to understand how our bodies work and how to appropriately fuel them for peak performance. Engineering allows for the creation of the equipment we play with and the surfaces we compete on. Technology allows us to watch old game tapes to prepare ourselves for an upcoming match. And Math allows us to simply keep score or look at our statistics to see how we are improving from race to race. STEM touches every aspect of sports.

What is the thing that excites you most about your work?

What excites me most about my work is connecting with people and empowering communities through sports. Coaches for Kilometer Kids are members of the community they work in. I love that Kilometer Kids, through this model, can build and transform communities through sport by supporting and empowering our coaches to continue to foster and build that sense of camaraderie and spirit within their own community.

What’s the most surprising thing about your role?

It has been a surreal experience to go from determining what we wanted this program to become, to seeing that in action. My favorite part of every season is getting to go out and visit our program sites across the state of Georgia to participate in practice with all of our Kilometer Kids.

Please share any anecdote from your career that may inspire a student who is interested in STEM to pursue a career in sports.

The best career advice I can give to someone is to find something you are passionate about and determine what knowledge and skills you need to be able to become a leader in that space. For me, that passion was the interconnectedness of sports and helping people, and the way to better prepare myself for a career in that arena was to build my STEM foundation through pursuing a Master’s degree in Public Health.