What have you been up to since graduating from ÁñÁ«ÊÓƵ?
My career trajectory was significantly shaped by my experiences at ÁñÁ«ÊÓƵ, particularly the scholarship, perspectives, and ways of thinking that my faculty, friends, and courses introduced me to. Since ÁñÁ«ÊÓƵ, I have worked to bridge my interests in teaching, ethnography, and public scholarship through both academic and service work. Just a few days after graduation, I moved to southern Thailand, where I began a two-year teaching fellowship with Princeton in Asia at a boarding school in a rural province. Following that position, I pursued an MA in Asian Studies at Cornell University as a Foreign Language and Area Studies fellow, focusing on practices of tsunami commemoration in the same province where I had taught. This ethnographic research opened new lines of inquiry centered on the intersections of ecological change, extractive industry, and moral relations in Thailand, and motivated me to pursue a PhD in sociocultural anthropology at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, where I am now. As part of my doctoral work, I completed long-term ethnographic fieldwork and archival research in Thailand, taught courses in anthropology, and supported undergraduate students in their honors projects. I have also worked to generate different forms of public scholarship as a way to bring anthropological research to broader audiences. I have done this through organizing public lecture series, curating artistic exhibitions and performances, and publishing my own creative ethnographic writing in various venues.
Why anthropology?
That is a wonderful question, because there are so many answers to it. I understand anthropology as an orientation to the world: a way of seeing and listening to the people we work with, and of perceiving the world around us. As a discipline, with its commitment to long-term ethnographic research and attention to culturally inflected ideas, behaviors, and concepts, anthropology allows us to better understand what people in diverse contexts and across time experience—what they value, the moral relations they cultivate, how communities negotiate economic precarity and environmental risk, how tensions arise and dissipate, and how people strive to create connections across social differences, even when those efforts falter in critical ways. It is a deeply person-centered discipline, and by person, I mean the term in its broadest sense, including other-than-human beings such as the spirits and ghosts that inhabit my field research site. This person-centered focus is what first drew me to anthropology: its dedication to understanding social complexity, and to challenging the biases, assumptions, and perspectives we carry in our own lives that inevitably shape how we see the world.
What advice would you give to current students or recent graduates interested in your field?
Anthropology, with its rigorous qualitative methodology and its culturally informed orientation to the world, is relevant across all fields of work. The research, writing, and critical thinking skills you develop through pursuing a degree in anthropology are invaluable, regardless of the career you choose after graduation. These skills allow you to meaningfully contribute to a wide range of sectors, including government, medicine, non-profit work, the tech industry, and beyond. In my own experience, my background in anthropology has shaped not only my academic work but also my roles as an analyst with the US Government Accountability Office and as a grant writer for nonprofits. In short, anthropology matters.
For those currently in anthropology programs or considering the field, I recommend staying open and curious. Let yourself play with ideas, explore regions or topics that may not have been on your radar at first. There is often immense pressure to have everything figured out, to have a career path neatly mapped. That pressure is very real, heavy, and stressful. Acknowledge it, but also allow yourself the space and time to explore. Things rarely unfold exactly as we expect, and some of the most meaningful insights and inspirations often come from unexpected places.
