I’m a transgender Tibetan artist and educator based in New York City.

I hold a PhD in Rhetoric and a specialization in Gender & Sexuality Studies. I completed these trainings at UC Berkeley’s Rhetoric Department and Gender & Women’s Studies Department, respectively. An excerpt from my dissertation, Tibet, China, and the United States: Self-immolation and the limits of understanding (2021), can be read here.

I received nine fellowships for my doctoral work including the UC Dissertation-Year Fellowship, the Magistretti Fellowship in Asian Languages, Cultures, History, and Society, and the Eugene Cota-Robles Fellowship.

I was born in New Delhi under refugee status and became one of the first Tibetan children to live in the United States. I grew up in the 1990s in a mobile home park in Colorado as well as apartments in Washington State. I’m a first-generation college graduate and attended Seattle Central Community College before obtaining my BA in Film at The Evergreen State College.