Trained as an educator and architect, Heidi (she/her) has devoted her career to advancing organizations and initiatives focused on civic leadership and cross-cultural understanding.

She served for nearly two decades as Founding Creative Director at City Year, a national youth service program that served as the model for AmeriCorps. In that role, Heidi helped to shape partnerships and programming as the organization scaled across the United States and was a co-founder of City Year’s first international site in Johannesburg, South Africa.

In 2008, Heidi launched Purple Suitcase, founded on the principle that learning about diverse people and cultures – within one’s own neighborhood and communities across the globe – enables individuals to embrace our commonalities and differences as we navigate in an increasingly complex and connected global community. Heidi has also served as strategic advisor to Project 351, which annually recruits a corps of 8th grade Service Ambassadors from all 351 cities and towns in Massachusetts to serve as leaders in their local communities and has consulted to a wide range of non-profit organizations and schools on program design, curriculum development, and civic engagement events.

Heidi holds a Master of Architecture from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has taught at the Rhode Island School of Design, and served on design juries at Harvard University School of Design, Mass College of Art, and the MIT School of Architecture. Her work has taken her around the globe with projects in England, Denmark, India, Japan, Singapore, South Africa, Navajo Tribal Lands, and throughout the United States.