ABOUT
Hello!
I’m a Brooklyn-based writer and editor with a PhD in anthropology from The New School for Social Research. For over five years, I was the Sociocultural & Linguistics Development Editor at SAPIENS, a digital anthropology magazine.
As an anthropologist, my research brought me to Japan to study earthquakes and volcanoes, and I continue to write and think about the relationships between people and nature through creative nonfiction and fiction projects.
When I'm not editing or writing, I enjoy hiking, dancing, playing piano, cooking, and all things cat-related.
Highlights
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PhD in Anthropology, The New School (New York, NY), May 2018
MA in Anthropology, The New School (New York, NY), May 2010
BA in East Asian Languages & Cultures, Indiana University (Bloomington, IN), May 2005
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“Bayou Sutra” (2020-2021)
For a feature-length story published in Orion in 2021, I conducted archival research, fieldwork, and interviews about the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II. The story investigates why and how around 16,000 Japanese Americans from the Pacific Coast were relocated to Arkansas during the war, incarcerated by the U.S. government, and forced to turn acres of swampland in the Mississippi Delta into productive agricultural land. Reporting for this story was supported by a Society of Environmental Journalists’ Fund for Environmental Journalism Rapid Response Grant.
Mississippi: An Anthropocene River (2018-2019)
I participated in collaborative fieldwork and public engagement events as a project researcher for the Anthropocene Curriculum, a project hosted by the Haus der Kulturen der Welt and the Max Plank Institute for the History of Science in Germany. In the role of “Traveler,” I produced a short nonfiction series using audio, photography, and text, based on a month of traversing the Mississippi River by canoe.
For my PhD at The New School, my dissertation combined ethnographic stories, multi-scalar histories, and thinking alongside and across literature from anthropology and other fields to explore the uncertainties of life in earthquake-prone Japan. Based on three years of fieldwork in Tokyo and the Izu Peninsula, the chapters delve into different ways people make sense of and respond to tectonic and volcanic forces, not only in terms of disaster but as necessary and beneficial forces that create landscapes, provide mineral-rich soil and water, and make possible particular ways of existing on a dynamic planet. This work was supported by funding from the Wenner-Gren Foundation, the National Science Foundation, and the Japan Foundation.
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Founder, Bird’s-Eye View Editing (2014-present)
I provide developmental editing, line editing, and copyediting services to scholars to help them develop and successfully execute articles, book manuscripts, and grant and book proposals. Through brainstorming sessions and tailored trainings, I also provide guidance on how to integrate storytelling practices in academic writing to reach wider audiences.
Assistant Managing Editor and Development Editor, SAPIENS/University of Chicago (2020-2025)
As the Sociocultural and Linguistic Anthropology Editor at SAPIENS, I worked with anthropologists to translate the complexity of their academic research by developing articles for a non-academic global audience. This role included shepherding hundreds of articles from submission to publication and leading classes and workshops for scholars on the craft of writing for the public, including as a core instructor for the SAPIENS Public Scholars Training Fellowship.
Writing Tutor, University Learning Center, The New School (2008-2013)
I advised students 1:1 on writing projects at various stages of development and led targeted workshops for graduate students on topics such as academic writing for ESL students, narrative techniques, and citation styles.