Functional genetics is the study of how your genes behave, not just what genes you have.

Your genes are like an instruction manual, but they’re influenced every day by food, stress, sleep, environment, and lifestyle. Functional genetics looks at how these factors interact with your biology and how certain systems in your body may need more support than others.

This approach doesn’t predict disease. it offers insight into how your body processes nutrients, manages stress, handles inflammation, and responds to modern life.

This is incredibly common, and it’s not your fault.

“Healthy” foods and supplements are often recommended in a broad sense, but everyone's body is unique. Differences in digestion, genetics, gut health, detox pathways, and stress load all affect how well your body actually uses what you’re giving it.

In some cases, foods or supplements that are helpful for many can quietly (or loudly!) create stress for others. Feeling unwell doesn’t mean you’re doing something wrong. It usually means your body needs a more personalized approach.

Foods like spinach, almonds, bone broth, fermented foods, or certain supplements can be incredibly nourishing for some people and problematic for others.

This can be due to factors like:

• Gut imbalances

• Immune sensitivity

• Genetic differences in detoxification or nutrient processing

• Nervous system overload

• Anti-nutrient stress
  

Signs you might be affected include bloating, fatigue, headaches, anxiety, skin issues, or symptoms that seem inconsistent or unexplained. Functional nutrition and genetics help identify patterns and problem areas so food becomes supportive instead of confusing.

Yes. I work with adults and children who have complex, layered health challenges.

Rather than focusing on diagnoses, I focus on the body systems involved and how they interact. Many families I support are navigating multiple stressors at once, neurological, immune, digestive, and environmental. I pay attention to patterns, subtle signals, and how stress, food, and the environment affect the body.

Looking into a client's genetics has been monumental in targeting complex health challenges.

Inflammation is not the same for everyone.

Instead of assuming a single cause, I look at multiple contributors such as food responses, stress physiology, immune signaling, nutrient needs, detox pathways, and environmental inputs.

The goal is not to suppress symptoms, but to understand what’s driving the body’s inflammatory response and support it in a way that feels sustainable and realistic for the individual.

My work is deeply personal.

I’ve walked my own path through chronic health challenges and know what it feels like to try all the “right” things and still struggle. That experience shaped how I see the body, with curiosity instead of judgment, and compassion instead of blame.

My journey led me to functional nutrition and genetics, not just as a profession, but as a way to help others feel less lost and more supported as they reconnect with their body’s innate wisdom.

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For anyone who likes to read or wants to learn more about my personal journey, the following is the story of how my health completely unraveled and what I did to save my life and shift my life's mission to becoming a healer.

Research and learning have been lifelong engagements with me. I have an unshakable curiosity about the foundations of why and how things happen, driven by a never-give-up mentality and a knack for transforming complex subjects into simple explanations. To put it simply, I've been a lifelong detective at heart. At the age of 18, enthralled by birds and dinosaurs (and still am), I was certain that my passions and mindset would lead me down the path to becoming a paleontologist or an ornithologist. With an overflowing library of dinosaur documentaries and my paintings and sculptures of Yellow Warblers and Lesser Birds-of-Paradise, I thought I had it all figured out. I knew who I was going to be.

Then life put me to the test. 

A series of insect bites from a two-day trip birding in the marshy habitats in Long Island, NY, would change my life forever. I spent my late teens and most of my 20's sick, incapacitated, and in agony. Doctor's visits led to more questions. ER visits resulted in no answers. Repeat urgent care doctors had pulled my parents aside to tell them that I needed psychological help. My primary care physician looked me in the eye and told me, "I give up on you."

For years, it felt like there was no hope. There were no answers. Just an endless sea of questions. How could a previously healthy girl in her early 20's be suddenly having grand-mal seizures, severe memory lapses, crippling joint pain, and walking with a cane, and despite dozens of doctors and specialists, nobody can tell her what's wrong? 

This horrific ordeal progressed and went on for the better part of a decade. During those hopeless years, thoughts about what life will look like going forward seemed grim. How on earth was I going to dig up Tyrannosaurus bones in the baking sun of the Montana badlands? How was I going to be able to do field research in the sagebrush habitats of Colorado to help protect the Gunnison Sage-Grouse? What is my future health going to look like? How was I ever going to be a mother? 

Enough was enough. 

I made a personal decision to break out of the allopathic model and decided to turn to the one person I knew who would go that extra mile and figure this complicated mess out... me. And unlike my PCP at the time, I will not be giving up on this case. Back in the early 2000's, Natropathic and Functional care was not nearly as accessible as it is today. During those years, while my health had fallen apart, I pushed myself through serious burnout while getting my Bachelor's degree and working. The days I was home, I was researching. I was consumed in learning different ways of healing the body holistically, and ended up with a growing new genre to add to my avian and prehistoric library.

To my core, I believe there are always answers to uncover, and there are always deep-rooted reasons that things happen. There's always a way to turn things around. And as this fire in me quickly grew, my purpose in life shifted to "my story doesn't end here." 

A new practitioner was born. 

In my long journey to get to where I am now, new passions were ignited within me, shaping me into the practitioner I am today. Herbalism, homesteading, nutrition, genetics, environmental toxins, and more became topics of insatiable interest. The universe always amazes me with how the twists and turns of life bring you to places you never imagined. The sickness of the past shaped me to be a practitioner who truly gets it. Who understands what life is like when health seems unattainable. Where standard lab testing and imaging, medications, supplements, and extreme diet changes don't yield the results you are desperately seeking. 

I've been there. And I'm here to tell you, there is hope. You just need someone who is dedicated to digging deep. 

Someone like a wannabe paleontologist. 

Someone who knows what it's like to be lost and need guidance, support, and direction. Someone whose passion is to help others step into their health and vitality. And someone who doesn't give up.

I want to understand your story, to help you understand your individual blueprint, and above all, to guide you into living your dreams and aspirations. It starts with joining forces with someone who wants to listen and who desires to go that extra mile to dig deep. In your story, we uncover the foundational reasons leading to the inflammation you are currently living with, as we embark on your journey to healing and wholeness together.

Today, I am proud to say that I am a mother of two beautiful, healthy girls. I am certified in Functional Genetics and Functional Nutrition, and have taken many courses in herbalism, homesteading, and more, along with two decades of research under my belt. Throughout the ups and downs my journey has taken me, I have found my lifelong calling where my detective and research-oriented drive thrives, and it involves you! You are destined to feel better. Let's embark on this journey together.