Greetings!

I teach and serve as Artist in Residence at the Communication Leadership graduate program at the University of Washington Department of Communication in Seattle. I first joined Comm Lead as Associate Director in 2010, rose to Associate Teaching Professor in 2020 before transitioning to my current appointment, and serve as a Clinical Instructor at the UW Department of Global Health. 

As a senior consultant at Common Power, I bring my leadership development curriculum to the work of voting rights and civic action. My work at CP involves intergenerational and interracial teams that work in community to support a more just and inclusive democracy.

In addition to Comm Lead and Common Power, I am on faculty at the Maine Media Workshop + College in Rockport, Maine. My MMW+C writing courses include memoir writing inspired by personal objects, as well as first-person essay across a variety of publishing formats.

My writings on the intersection of food and culture explore the preservation of food traditions in post-conflict societies as a means of sustaining community identity and have appeared in Saveur, Comstible, and Gastronomica. My debut collection of essays, Meet Me at the Bamboo Table: Everyday Meals Everywhere, was published by Chin Music Press. I am a judge for the James Beard Foundation. 

I was lucky to travel as a German Marshall Memorial Fellow and a Thomas J. Watson Research Fellow. I have an MPA from the Daniel J. Evans School of Public Policy and Governance.