I am a Lecturer in Education and International Development at the UCL Institute of Education, University College London, working within the Centre for Education and International Development.  My research interests include the intersection of comparative and international education with international relations and the political economy of development, focused primarily in Southeast Asia. I have consulted with the World Bank in Cambodia and Afghanistan and the Asian Productivity Organization in Tokyo. I also host a weekly podcast on education, globalization, and society called FreshEd.

Since 2006, I’ve worked in various education sectors across Asia. For three consecutive summers, while completing my undergraduate degree at Lehigh University, I taught advanced English in Taipei, Taiwan. During my graduate studies (also at Lehigh), I served as an NGO Representative at United Nations headquarters in New York City for a Singapore-based NGO.

Upon completion of my master’s of education in comparative and international education, I moved to and worked in Cambodia for two years, developing a research department at This Life Cambodia (TLC). While at TLC, I conducted a research study on private tutoring in six schools, which was funded by the Open Society Foundation’s Privatisation in Education Research Initiative. I also worked on Child Friendly Schools in Siem Reap, Cambodia.

After two years in Cambodia, I moved to Hong Kong to pursue my Ph.D. in comparative education under the guidance of Mark Bray. In August 2015, I completed my doctoral studies at the Faculty of Education at The University of Hong Kong. My dissertation explored the various social relations enacted by individuals in an environment of educational privatization in one Cambodian village. After completing my Ph.D., I was awarded a Japan Society for the Promotion of Science postdoctoral research fellowship in the Graduate School of Education, University of Tokyo, Japan. Upon completion of my post-doc, I became an Assistant Professor at the Waseda Institute for Advanced Study, Waseda University. During my four years in Tokyo, I also taught at Waseda’s Graduate School of Asia Pacific Studies, the University of Tokyo, Keio University, and Sophia University. I moved to London, UK in November 2019.

Despite my geographical focus in my research, my experience spans beyond Asia. I am currently the vice-president of the Tagore-SenGupta Foundation,  founder of FreshEd, Inc., both US registered 501(c)3 non-profits, and was the associate editor of the journal European Education: Issues and Studies for nearly five years. I studied for one semester in Vienna, Austria and have taken courses in Melbourne, Australia. Taken together, I have lived in eight countries since 2006 — the USA, Taiwan, Austria, Cambodia, Hong Kong, Australia, Japan, and the United Kingdom.

Please contact me here.