My aunt loves to tell the story of how as a toddler, I would sit for hours on end at my grandparents’ house making art – using cooked rice as glue to create paper sculptures. This continued all through elementary and secondary school where creative classes like art, drama and English became my favorite, despite also having an affinity for technical subjects like math and science.

In university, I almost went to art school but ultimately settled on pursuing a career in architecture. Architecture presented problems that could only be solved with both creativity and technical knowledge, which turns out to be my favorite type of problem solving. During this time, I also started to really explore dance as a means of expression.  As a matter of fact, I managed to combine by design and dance interests in my Master’s thesis, which was entitled “Living Dance: creating ARCHITECTURE through DANCE.”.  

Following school, I pursued a career in design while simultaneously continuing to flex my creative muscles through dance as a teacher, performer, and choreographer. However, during the pandemic, I realized that it was time for a new challenge and wanted to broaden my creative knowledge. During lockdown, I studied user experience design for a short time but ultimately committed to pursuing an education in visual effects. Like architecture, it is about solving creative problems and I am excited to now be part of this ever-evolving industry.

Whether it is visual effects, architecture, dance, or design, I strive to balance creativity with practicality, function, and efficiency. Ultimately, understanding story and purpose is the key to making something worthy of attention.