About

I’m an independent scholar and writer focused on the urban and technology, as well as film, television, and digital media. My work has always been transdisciplinary, combining my background as a writer/editor, photographer, and documentary filmmaker, with my studies in cultural sociology and media. I hold a PhD In Sociology and Film & Digital Media from UC Santa Cruz, and an MA in Media, Culture, and Communication from NYU. My doctoral dissertation used the incursions of Silicon Valley technology into urban mobility as a lens to examine how the big tech companies are transforming our material lives as much as our data lives. In addition, I frequently write and present on speculative utopian/dystopian film and television. The question of whose future is being imagined and built towards is central to all my work.

I have always been fascinated by the ways visual storytelling creates connection to ideas, places, practices, and states of being. Alongside my academic work, I’ve long written about art, culture, technology, travel, and the environment, which led to my Master’s work on green branding and ecological politics.

I’m a second-generation third-culture kid and have been traveling my whole life, including stretches living in Hong Kong, the UK, and France. Though I’m an inveterate city person and a New Yorker by birth, the one consistent place in my life is a family summer cabin in the Adirondack Mountains, where I learned a love of wild places from an early age. I’ve been hiking and camping since childhood, and over the years have added cycling, backpacking, surfing, snowboarding, and rock climbing to the ways I interact with the world. I’m as passionate about inclusion in and access to the outdoors as I am about public transportation. I live in Los Angeles (unceded Gabrielino-Tongva/Kizh territory) where I split my time between the San Gabriel Mountains, central LA, and the Pacific.