Alumni Life Design Experience Spring 2025

Keira is a full-time celebration enthusiast focusing on what makes us revel and how communities come together to thrive. She is the Sr. Assistant Director of Life Design at Johns Hopkins leveraging creative spaces futurist and feminist lens, host for The Dinner Party, navigating conversations on grief, and performer in Philadelphia's Vaudevillian New Year Brigade.  

Bringing more than 14 years of experience in non-profits and higher education as a facilitator, career coach, and civic boundary spanner, she believes we learn who we are through a tenacious pursuit of self-knowledge, and the letting go of fear to offer our unique form of generosity. In the past she has worked for Grinnell College in service and social Innovation, Princeton University’s civic engagement, and with Friends General Conference expanding welcoming communities.

Tessa W. McKenzie, certified as a Designing Your Life Coach and as Career Coach by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE), serves in the role of Associate Director, Hopkins Connect (under Development and Alumni Relations and Integrative Learning and Life Design) after over 15 of experience in training, nonprofit capacity building, and branding. Tessa served as a Life Design Educator with Johns Hopkins University’s Krieger School of Arts and Sciences as well as for students with disabilities and international students for seven years. Prior to coaching, Tessa was Public Education Officer at the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc. (CLINIC) and served in numerous capacities, including as an AmeriCorps volunteer, regarding outreach and immigrant advocacy.

Tessa is a survivor of Autoimmune Encephalitis (AE -swelling of the brain). Serving as Chief Resilience Officer of at the International Autoimmune Encephalitis Society (IAES), Tessa promotes disease awareness and support AE warriors through "resilience" and mentorship education.

Janine Tucker spent 29 years teaching communication, teamwork and leadership skill sets to her players as the Head Women’s Lacrosse Coach at Johns Hopkins University before becoming the Director of Development for Special Projects at Hopkins. In this role, she supports the Hopkins alumni base through meaningful engagement and unique opportunities to enhance the alumni experience. Janine has written six books on coaching and brings her knowledge of perseverance, motivation and uplifting others to the Alumni Life Design Experience.

Michael was formerly part of JHU’s Office of Integrated Learning and Life Design (ILLD) since Fall 2019, supporting students in exploring how their major may align with their industries/fields of interest through curriculum design scaffolding, teaching courses, and tailored advising. Before joining the ILLD, Michael was an administrator and faculty at Bennington College and Hampshire College respectively, Michael’s academic background is in urban and architectural theory having completed graduate coursework at University of California Berkeley and plans on completing his PhD dissertation in summer 2023. Michael has a BA in architectural studies from University of California Riverside.

In his spare time, he loves working on his Olympic lifting form and kettlebell routines. He is thrilled to be supporting JHU alumni in exploring their life and career interests and is committed to redesigning integrated learning and design thinking in ways that take into account the diverse lives of JHU students and alumni. If Mike could tell his college-self anything, he would say to consider reframing the exploration of aspirations and challenges, not as an individualistic and isolating experience, but as one that can be meaningfully supported through a community centered approach, leaning on alumni mentoring resources as one example.