About

I am a scholar-activist, teacher-educator, and anthropologist of education who draws on my K-12 teaching experiences to understand conflicts that arise around history, identity, and language in the classroom, both in the US and in Southeast Asia.

I am an Associate Teaching Professor at the University of Missouri-Columbia, where I teach TESOL classes for undergraduate pre-service teachers and supervise social studies student teaching interns. I am passionate about helping new teachers welcome ALL students and families, especially multilingual immigrant and refugee populations.

I’ve taught middle school and high school social studies in the Bronx, New York, and in Columbia, Missouri, and which led me to publish several textbooks with Teachers College Press (Teaching US History Thematically: Document Based Lessons for the Secondary Classroom—2017/2023; and Teaching World History Thematically: Essential Questions and Document-Based Lessons to Connect Past and Present–2020).

Since 2001, I’ve been collaborating with teachers from Myanmar on ways to teach history that promote the reconciliation of ethnic conflict, including co-authoring a thematic, primary-source-based textbook called Histories of Burma (Mote Oo Education, 2013). I’ve consulted for international organizations such as UNESCO, UNICEF, and the World Bank, and served on advisory boards for educational institutions including Spring University Myanmar and Virtual Federal University-Myanmar. Since 2011, I’ve been working on an as-needed basis as a Burmese language interpreter for Columbia Public Schools, and that has led to publications on the Myanmar refugee diaspora and their integration into US school systems; I’m currently researching higher education access for Myanmar refugee-background students.

My work has appeared in academic journals such as Comparative Education Review, Anthropology & Education Quarterly, and COMPARE, as well as edited volumes. I am committed to public scholarship, publishing op-eds and essays in the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Education Week, Inside Higher Ed, Los Angeles Review of Books, American Scholar, and the Columbia Missourian, where I’m a local columnist.

My novel, Have Fun in Burma, was published by Northern Illinois University Press in 2018. I’m active with the Columbia Friends Meeting, Show Me Dharma, and my local chapter of Moms Demand Action. I live in Columbia, MO, with my husband and two children.