Welcome!
Education
Ph.D. in Political Science (Expected 2028)
University of California, Irvine
B.A. Political Science
Quinnipiac University
A.S. Paralegal Studies
Naugatuck Valley Community College
About Me
My journey towards a PhD hasn't been straightforward. After high school I attended the University of Connecticut for three semesters before dropping out. I eventually enrolled in community college where I obtained my degree in paralegal studies, and then transferred to complete a degree in political science from Quinnipiac University. It's here that I met faculty who taught me that International Relations was more than liberalism, realism, constructivism, etc., and that there was room in the discipline for me to explore the questions I held about the world. I learned about what a PhD was for the first time during my junior year of college, and decided then to set my sights on graduate school. Now as a graduate student, I enjoy existing within (and building) communities that are working towards alternative ways of knowing/being, within academia and beyond. Additionally, I enjoy mentoring undergraduate students who, much like I did, might believe themselves unworthy or incapable of entering graduate school.
Though now living in sunny Irvine, California, I'm a born and raised New Englander who misses Connecticut's seasons desperately (ok... maybe not winter).
A Note on Positionality
My work frequently engages with the work of Indigenous peoples, particularly Indigenous communities from/of Oceania and Latin America. I also often speak to issues that are deeply and intrinsically connected with various Indigenous cosmologies. Given my use of interpretive methodology and commitment to decolonial research methods, I acknowledge the importance of stating ones own positionality. Though I have Pacific Islander heritage (Tahitian), I am uncertain of exact genealogy and grew up divorced from culture/community. This upbringing provided me with the sensitivity to detect the erasure of Oceania in my K-12 schooling and in collegiate curriculum, eventually leading me to study epistemics/cosmology, colonialism, and pluriversality.
I say this to explain (in-part) how/why I came to my work, and where my activism stems from. This said, in my role as a scholar tasked with generating knowledge and existing in positions of privilege/power in the academy, I do not identify as, nor approach my research as, an Indigenous/Pasifika woman (nor as a total outsider). I remain in the tension of hybridity, but do not claim to speak as, or on behalf of, Indigenous peoples or communities as a scholar.