Art and design have been an integral part of my life from the time I was born. My grandparents were artists born in the Bay Area and the Monterey Peninsula; one of my grandfathers taught me to paint the moment I could hold a brush as a toddler. For as long as I can remember I have been exposed to art/architecture/design and technology. One of my grandfathers was an architect who taught introduced me to MS-DOS via Tetris and a word scramble game, then the commands required to access them. One of my grandmothers taught me interdisciplinary, multimedia arts and social theory.

I take a holistic, integrative approach to design, communications, and academic work. After completing a bachelor of fine arts in New Media & Web Design and working in the field, I found myself interested in learning more about research and educational resource accessibility. A majority of my informal education was spent on social and political science, human rights, anthropology, and sociology as these areas intersect with mass media, media arts, and literature. I went back to school to earn my master's degree in human rights education from the University of San Francisco focusing on these themes in my thesis project, "Translating Transformative Human Rights Education through Visual Languages and Informal Spaces."

In between the completion of my master's program and my current studies, I worked with (and at) higher educational institutions, served on nonprofit board of directors, supported the development of nonprofit programs and community outreach initiatives, and supported many publications, reports, and events related to social justice and human rights projects.

I am presently a doctoral student in International and Multicultural Education with a concentration in human rights education at University of San Francisco, School of Education.