I am a medical anthropologist. My expertise, teaching, and research are located at the nexus of medical/cultural anthropology, public health, and East Asian Studies, with an emphasis on applied work. For my research, I primarily utilize the anthropological methodology of long-term immersive participant observation fieldwork, working one-on-one with individuals, families, and institutions, embedded on location over extended periods of time. Having worked in multiple public health capacities outside of higher education, I am always keen to demonstrate how the social sciences can be directly utilized in real-world health-related applications and scenarios. Everyone’s journey through higher education is unique, and a core facet of my roles as instructor and mentor is to help students discover and define their own distinct pathways forward.

• PhD, University College London (UCL)

• MPhil, University of Oxford

• BA, University of Rochester

I have two ongoing principal research tracks. My long-term research since 2012 examines the lived experiences and narratives of older adult patients with degenerative diseases in urban Japan, and the nurses, physicians, and family members who care for them. This work often focuses on documenting and analyzing individual and societal perceptions of regenerative medicine – the development and application of native and induced stem cells to repair damaged organs, tissue, and cells – investigating biomedicine and emergent biotechnology through the lens of medical anthropology. My research highlights connections, disjunctures, and conceptual overlaps between cellular engineering procedures, traditional medicine/treatments (kampō), and folk rituals repurposed for novel health outcomes, from both patient and practitioner perspectives.

Concurrent to the above, since 2022 I have been conducting research the northern Tōhoku region of Japan focusing on emergency management and post-disaster reconstruction. I am surveying healthcare infrastructure and access in rural towns along approx. 250 miles of coastline which were heavily impacted by the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami in 2011. As part of this research, and in conjunction with local partnerships and networks, I am also gathering local narratives and sentiments about recovery efforts and the health impacts of new emergency management and mitigation initiatives.