I grew up near Los Angeles, spending every moment I could exploring California’s coast, deserts, and mountains. I went to Harvard for college, where I studied social anthropology and filmmaking. After graduating, I worked leading wilderness backpacking trips for teens and guiding commercial whitewater rafting trips. Experiences with friends made while teaching raft guiding overseas sparked my interest in a career in medicine. I attended the UC Berkeley-UCSF Joint Medical Program, where I completed a masters focused on medical anthropology at UC Berkeley and my medical degree at UCSF. Though I had initially imagined becoming a primary care doctor, early in medical school I became interested in psychiatry and in psychotherapy in particular. I completed my psychiatry residency at UCSF and one year of training in psychodynamic psychotherapy at the San Francisco Center for Psychoanalysis.

I have worked extensively in outpatient and inpatient contexts at a wide range of clinical sites — from UCSF’s and UCLA’s academic medical centers to San Francisco General Hospital and Citywide Case Management to the San Francisco and Greater LA Veterans Affairs hospitals. I have trained in both group and couples therapy, and for several years I have been a regular participant in a group of veterans and VA staff focused on building community, growing, and healing through surfing. Though I continue to practice psychiatry in other settings part-time, in my independent practice I am only accepting patients for individual psychotherapy, with prescribing when indicated.