I am a researcher and scholar working at the intersection of leadership, technology, and healthcare. As part of my Ph.D. studies at Lesley University, I explored and reformulated Hannah Arendt's concepts of the Private and Public as presented in her seminal work, The Human Condition. My dissertation proposes a novel understanding of the Private and Public as modes of human existence and interaction across diverse domains, including education, business, and doctor education. My work examines how leadership emerges through Verwandlungen and how movement across Private and Public spheres can serve as a catalyst for innovation, transformation, and collective action. Before my studies at Lesley, I attended The Longy School of Music of Bard College where I completed a Masters in Vocal Performance. Today, I integrate music to my presentations as an interdisciplinary method to illustrate concepts and ideas in a wide array of fields including leadership, capabilities and more.
As part of my latest academic work, on June 24th 2026 I had the honor of presenting virtually at the American Academy of Religion (AAR). My talk was titled "Illness and Spirituality: Private to Public Metaphors and Transfigurations." I spoke about the many years of research I have conducted into the doctor-patient relationship, and specifically on the question of what actually makes healing work. My argument is that healing - whether it happens in a clinic with the most novel technology or at the hands of a shaman or a curandero in a traditional setting - turns to be most effective when illness is transformed through language and metaphor into something nameable and shared. Private fear becomes an object, which exists as an Arendtian in-between: a something situated outside the sufferer that can now be spoken about and that is placed within a community's existing world of meaning, and thus confronted and healed collectively. I believe that language in this role does more than communicate - it helps constitute a world, giving people a measure of control over their suffering.
