My career has included teaching, work in the public sector and journalism. I have a longstanding interest in peace education, and in arts-based community engagement. My research interests include naming and law, foodways, festivals and puppetry. I have taught most recently at UC Berkeley and also at Penn and the University of Houston, as well as at two universities in Turkey. My research has included alternative narratives of modern Turkish history, puppetry and materiality, ritual laughter and foodways. I have been an oral history trainer for Syrian women refugees in Turkey and explored traditions of Liberians in Philadelphia accompanied by public programming.