Welcome!

I am a PhD candidate in Communication at University of Southern California with a graduate certificate in Science and Technology Studies (STS). I am interested in the digital mediation of emotion and affect across emerging technologies. My doctoral dissertation is a multi-sited ethnography about the making of social robots and companion AI systems in U.S. laboratories and Asian consumer markets, asking how care, empathy, and emotional support are imagined and designed in technical capacities. My ongoing and published scholarly work studies topics such as digital grief and care pratices in more-than-human context. I am currently thinking through how ethnographic sensibilities might be expanded for the study of sociotechnical systems. Methodologically, my work combines ethnography, interviews, surveys, and design research methods, with a broader commitment to critical HCI. I am advised by Professors Jennifer Petersen and Christina Dunbar-Hester, and Dr. Aisling Kelliher.
Before joining Annenberg, I studied East Asian Studies and Media Arts and Practice, and worked as a journalist for international news outlets in Asia and the United States.
Alongside my scholarly work, I write fiction and poetry. I am a 2026 Periplus Fellow in Fiction, a 2025 Brooklyn Poets Summer Fellow, and an alum of the AWP Writer to Writer Mentorship Program. Most of my published fiction is available online, and my poetry chapbook is forthcoming with Black Sunflower Poetry Press in 2026.

Research concentrations: Feminist STS, Critical HCI, Design Ethics, Affective Computing