I was born and raised in Senegal (West Africa) and moved to France at 16 years where I finished high school and studied Economics. In 2000, I moved to the US for family reasons and ever since, my career path has been driven by my passion for French and Francophone cultures.
At the Alliance Française of Boston, I led the Education Department and helped launch one of the first Heritage Language Programs in Boston serving a large Haitian community in several elementary schools in the Boston area.
Another family move led me to New York where I joined the French American School of New York. For 10 years, I oversaw the extracurricular activities, promoting the French language through many programs to parents but also to the Westchester community at large.
In 2019, I joined the cultural services of the French Embassy as the program officer of the French Heritage Language Program (FHLP), a program
providing free language programs in public schools and community centers across the US. The FHLP is helping francophone immigrants and young Americans with francophone background maintain their linguistic and cultural heritage and leverage their linguistic skills, through educational and cultural programs.
As a francophone parent raising children in the US, I was extremely excited about this new professional adventure and was looking forward to helping strength and grow a program which was very close to her heart.
I am passionate about equity, inclusion and culturally responsive-sustaining education and a fierce advocate for these sometimes « invisible » French speakers .
I am one of the French language representatives at the National Coalition of Community-Based Heritage Language Schools and a member of the Advisory Board of CALEC (Center for the Advancement of Languages, Education. I also serve on the scientific committee of Francophonia, an organisation based in Nice (France) promoting the teaching of the French language and providing training to french teachers around the world.