Bio

A Vermonter born and raised, I grew up in a ramshackle farmhouse on the dead end of a dirt road, just south of the border with French Canada. At my K-8 public school, music and art classes were run out of one of the last remaining operational one-room schoolhouses in the country. I taught myself piano and trumpet, and concertized on the latter across Vermont and at Carnegie Hall with Trey Anastasio and the Vermont Youth Orchestra.

At 17, I set off to the University of Chicago where I developed an immediate, life-long fascination with East Asian linguistics. I graduated with double honors with an AB in East Asian Languages and Civilizations in 2009, with a concentration in modern Japanese history and the goal of becoming a professor.

From 2009-2011, I taught English in two middle schools in rural Japan (on an island off an island off an island) with the Japan Exchange and Teaching Program — and was in Japan for the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster. Combining my love of music with my love of Japan, I finished with the JET Program to begin a PhD in Musicology at Cornell University, where I researched contemporary Japanese music. My work was supported by the Department of State, the Fulbright Foundation, Music Television, and several departments across campus.

I frequently returned to Japan for fieldwork, and during my first of three years of researching underground music in the clubs of Tokyo and Osaka (and studying ancient Buddhist dancing in northern Japan), I realized that my career goals were shifting: rather than researching and writing about people who are living creative lifestyles, I wanted to lead a creative life myself. So, upon graduating from Cornell in 2018, I moved to Brooklyn to begin life anew.

Since coming to New York City, I’ve taught as an adjunct professor at Binghamton University and in a Brooklyn public school as a music and kindergarten teacher, freelanced as an instructor of the Chinese and Japanese languages (including at a hedge fund near Central Park), tutored children in reading and writing, and served as a jack-of-all-trades at an educational startup. I currently do freelance editing work, teach Japanese, write for an array of publications in the US and Japan, and run workshops and seminars on my own and in partnership with alternative classroom spaces and galleries across New York City. I started it all working as a waitress in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn.

My experiences are variegated, but paint a clear, coherent portrait of my passion for education and expression. The pillars of Creativity, Integration, Truth, and Humanity guide my ever-expanding practice.