I hold a life-long affinity to water and coastlines; my people come from peninsulas (Korea and Italy). I have studied, investigated, narrated, and regulated water throughout my career. I researched water quality and interactions with tourist health in the Peruvian Amazon; changes in ecohydrology after deforestation in Costa Rica; and what water futures rural agricultural communities want in the Colorado River basin. I worked on implementing Clean Water Act stormwater management regulations for Washington state’s Department of Ecology.
Water flows through all these experiences and with my dissertation research related to Indigenous Water Knowledges, I realized story and relations with water are a facet of all my work that could provide greater meaning to everyone involved with water and the life it sustains.
I am interested in intersectional liberatory futures, particularly pertaining to water in arid and coastal communities. During my PhD, I have collaborated with communities in resistance across continents. I have used methods such as photovoice, participatory exploratory scenario planning, found poetry, and rhetorical criticism. My work is situated at the nexus of political ecology, critical human geography, and sustainability transformations.