I knew I wanted to be in education when I was in high school. At first, I imagined myself as a high school band director—music had been such an integral part of my identity formation, a space where I felt a sense of belonging and purpose. But as I moved forward, I realized that education itself was where my heart was, not just music. I saw firsthand both the positive and negative forces shaping students' experiences.

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My middle school English teacher help inspire my love of writing, pushing me to strengthen my voice, to dig deeper into ideas, and to refine my craft. But not all of my experiences in education were affirming. In second grade, I was told by my teacher that I couldn’t pursue the more difficult math class because, as she put it, "Asians are smarter"—referencing two of my friends. I didn’t have the language to process it then, but I knew that something about her words was shattering. Despite my white-presenting self, I have identified deeply with my Korean heritage for most of my life, yet in that moment, my second-grade self felt her identity decimated. It was an early lesson in how borders of identity are policed, in how others define who belongs where, in how deeply entrenched assumptions often shape knowledge and access.

 

When I reached undergraduate school, I struggled—not because of lack of ability, but because I was navigating undiagnosed ADHD, depression, and anxiety while working 40+ hours a week to help support my family. A counselor wrote in my file that she thought I was lying, a judgment that lingered with me for years, a reminder of how institutions often fail those who do not fit neatly into their structures. It wasn’t until I returned to a community college after UCLA that I finally found the language to articulate what I wanted to do. That realization led me to my MA in Sociology, where I explored how arts, culture, media, and education intersect to shape social realities. My passion for these intersections ultimately guided me toward my PhD in Education, which I completed in May 2023.

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Now, I am a passionate educator and researcher, but I am also an artist, storyteller, and creative. My poetry, creative writing, and photography are not separate from my academic work; they are essential to it. I have long been drawn to storytelling—not just as a means of self-expression but as a way of challenging borders of knowledge, culture, and identity. My creative work is deeply embedded in my border-crossing praxis—it is how I navigate and make sense of the liminal spaces between disciplines, cultures, and epistemic traditions.

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I have taught middle and high school humanities, undergraduate sociology, and both undergraduate and graduate-level research methodologies. I strongly believe in applied, action, and community-engaged research—research that does not sit in isolation but is embedded in lived experience, social transformation, and justice-driven praxis. My work explores the boundaries of knowledge—how they are constructed, contested, and reimagined within education and society—through visual methodologies, participatory research, and creative endeavors. I see research as more than an academic endeavor; it is a tool for world-making, for re-imagination, and for developing new understandings beyond what we believe to be true. 

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For me, storytelling is activism, art is resistance, and research can be imagination in practice, but of course, it is not always. I move between disciplines and creative forms because no single medium can capture the complexity of the world. My poetry and fiction allow me to reimagine futures, my photography documents stories of what we can see, and my research interrogates systems and how they impact the individual. Each of these practices is an act of crossing—a way of moving through the borders that seek to contain knowledge, identity, and possibility.

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Teaching is not just something I do—it is part of who I am. I love teaching. Seeing the ways research can directly impact society and how it can be a mechanism for reshaping narratives (though of course, not always nor historically) continues to drive my work as both an educator and mentor.

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And now, my journey continues. I was recently selected as a Fulbright U.S. Scholar, where I am in Spain currently for Spring 2025, allowing me to extend my threading of wanderlust—not just through physical travel but through the movement of ideas, through crossing and re-crossing epistemic, cultural, and intellectual borders.