A bit about myself

I grew up in the faraway and whimsical land of… Southern New Jersey. 🌴👀

Maybe that’s why I was so enamored with media: it was able to transport me out of the everyday routine of my suburban upbringing. I devoured television, movies, comics, and cartoons, absorbing cinematic language and emotion long before I had the language to describe them.

I told stories in any way that I could. As a kid, any piece of paper I could get my hands on would be filled with hand-drawn comics, characters, and worlds.

Alongside that love of narrative, I also grew up with a deep fascination for technology. I had a Nintendo controller in my hands before I was out of diapers, and I distinctly remember the awe I felt the first time my family purchased a home PC. Playing games on it like Glider and Age of Empires would captivate me for hours.

In high school, I took part in theater and music — two disciplines that I think have helped me tremendously as an editor. Martin Scorsese’s longtime editor, Thelma Schoonmaker, is on record saying that an editor has to have “tremendous patience, discipline, and a sense of musicality.” This deeply resonated with me when I heard it, and I credit my time on stage and in choir with teaching me valuable lessons in rhythm, pacing, and how to shape emotion through performance.

Once in college, I was able to travel, and moved from the East Coast to San Francisco, where I attended the Academy of Art University. There, I was given a full introduction into the world of film and television — pre-production, post-production, and everything in between. I also discovered animation when I took my first After Effects class. Being able to apply my love of drawing and design into my video work was a huge moment for me, and After Effects became my way of adding polish and personality to almost every project I touched.

I started my career out of college as an editing and production assistant, gradually working my way through tech marketing studios and short-form documentary projects. Eventually, I moved into higher-education media, producing and editing videos for online courses at schools like the University of California, Santa Cruz and Stanford University. I enjoyed working in education, because I was able to take on more of a directorial role, as I was mostly collaborating with course instructors. This gave me freedom to lead and offer design input using my film and television background.

But the gravitational pull of video games never went away. When I was finally lucky enough to transition into game production, it felt like coming home. Games are, to me, the ultimate fusion of every artistic medium that has shaped my life: writing, design, art, animation, performance, sound, interactivity — video games use it all, and they truly feel like the core of immersive storytelling.

Today, I’m continuing to grow as a game creator, learning more about coding and design with the long-term goal of building my own games. My hope is to craft experiences that resonate with people the way stories have always resonated with me.