About Me
My academic background is in bioethics, medical anthropology, and evolutionary biology. I currently work as a Senior Library Assistant at the Portland Public Library and as a legal assistant at a solo practitioner's law office. I've worked in research labs, gone on an archaeological dig in Israel, and done paleoanthropological fieldwork in Ethiopia. My primary interests involve the intersection between health, data, technology, and ethics, the patient-physician relationship, public health, and social and environmental influences on health, though what initially got me interested in bioethics was end of life decision-making and Physician-Assisted Dying/Medical Aid In Dying in particular.
I am also a self-professed nerd/geek. Some of my personal hobbies and interests include: tea, playing/running games of Dungeons and Dragons/Pathfinder (and other tabletop RPGs), and mapmaking for D&D games.
Experience Highlights
- One year of experience in a public library.
- Four years of professional experience in a research setting.
- Over 80 hours of clinical ethics rotations at the Cleveland Clinic and Cleveland VA Hospital.
- Summer intern in a busy community hospital office environment.
- International courses and field work in bioethics, paleoanthropology, and archaeology.
- Building this website. Many thanks to HTML5 UP for the design and Scaleway for providing the host server space. Check out my modifications to it and how I also set up a separate WordPress blog*. *Link currently broken due to update error-- backup forthcoming!
Education
Case Western Reserve University
MA in Bioethics
Masters thesis on pediatric end-of-life decision making under the guidance of Dr. Stuart Youngner
Primary interests: end-of-life decision making, physician-assisted death, public health ethics, patient-physician relationship
Below are some relevant courses I've taken.
- Fundamentals of Bioethics I/II
- Death, Dying, and Euthanasia
- Public Health Ethics in the Netherlands
- Ethics, Law, and Health Research
- Hindu and Jain Bioethics
- Natural Philosophy
- Clinical Ethics Rotations at the Cleveland Clinic and Cleveland VA Hospitals
Case Western Reserve University
BA in Medical Anthropology and Evolutionary Biology
Medical Anthropology: Senior capstone project on anthropogenic influences on the spread of zoonotic diseases under the supervision of Dr. Janet McGrath
Evolutionary Biology: A semester of paleoanthropological fieldwork in Ethiopia with Dr. Yohannes Haile-Selassie
Below are some relevant courses I've taken.
- Medical Anthropology and Public Health
- Fundamentals of Global Health
- AIDS: Epidemiology, Biology, and Culture
- Introduction to International Health
- Introduction to Statistical Analysis in Social Science
- Illegal Drugs and Society
- Introduction to Linguistic Anthropology
- The Most Ancient Near East
- Introduction to Cognitive Linguistics
- Perspectives on the Natural World
- Introduction to Human Evolution
- Human Evolution: The Fossil Evidence
- Paleoanthropology Field Seminar in Ethiopia
- Darwinian Medicine
- Human Osteology
- Physical Geology
- Historical Geology/Paleontology
- Basic Histology
- Genes, Evolution, and Ecology
- Development and Physiology