I’m a scientist, an artist, a passionate home-cook, and an aspiring food writer currently based in New York. I was brought up in Northern California, home of the vast redwoods and Silicon Valley. I grew up painting, singing, writing, and eating delicious South-Asian meals. I live in the intersection of science and art—both deeply rooted in making sense of the world and sharing truth.

Passionate and curious about the material world around me, I studied chemical engineering at UC Santa Barbara and was deeply involved in the world of research, laboratory experimentation, problem-solving, and creation. While at UCSB, I was also involved in advocacy work focusing on womxn’s and LGBTQ+ rights.

I worked as a scientist and product developer at Clorox, formulating charcoal and wipes, but was inadvertently swept into the world of Food. While working on flavored wood briquets and interacting with various spice-houses, I slowly developed a keen interest in studying food beyond cooking. My first food-related passion project was authoring a cookbook for home-cooks within the Asian employee resource group at Clorox.

Pursuing my dream to further learn about food, I am finishing up my Masters in Food Studies at NYU. While at NYU, I have worked as a food research fellow at Bon Appétit and Epicurious magazines to develop my understanding of the food media world and also guest lectured for the undergraduate food history course.

My professional aspiration is to pursue a PhD in South Asian diasporic foodways. My personal aspiration is to write a South Asian cookbook that aims to make South Asian cooking more accessible and centers independent indigenous cultures that span the subcontinent, rather than treating the cuisine as a monolith. My hope with this project is to further make sense of my heritage and ancestral cuisine, and explore a deeper connection between the science of cooking and the art of making a meal.