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 guiding commercial whitewater rafting trips and leading wilderness backpacking trips for teens. Experiences with friends I made teaching raft guiding in India inspired me, to my surprise, to consider a career in medicine. I confirmed this interest by working as an EMT, an emergency room scribe, and an HIV-prevention counselor, while completing medical school prerequisite coursework in the evening.

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 at outpatient and inpatient contexts at a wide range of clinical sites — including UCSF’s and UCLA’s academic medical centers, San Francisco General Hospital, Citywide Case Management, San Francisco County Jail, California State Prison, and the San Francisco and Greater LA Veterans Affairs hospitals. I have trained in both group and couples therapy, and I am a regular participant in a group of veterans and VA staff focused on building community, growing, and healing through surfing. In addition to my independent practice, I have part-time roles at Instituto Familiar de la Raza and the Committee of Interns and Residents.