After receiving my B.A from Yale University I worked primarily in communications and business development while pursuing performing arts. I founded and run Connect Film Festival, and work as a performer (standup comedy, acting, vocals) and photographer. I have a Masters in International Relations/International Studies and have practiced the analysis and communication necessary to write policy papers. I have simultaneously pursued filmmaking and creative media, and am currently represented as an actor by Gilchrist Management. Places my photographs have appeared include book jackets, CDs, Barstool magazine, many actor's headshots, and the Huffington Post. I lived in Australia for more than six years and my Masters is from University of Melbourne in International Studies. I also have a more specialized diploma focusing on mediation and conflict resolution from University of Queensland. I received a Dean's commendation and was awarded a Global Mobility Scholarship to India. My GPA at Melbourne Uni was an H1, the highest ranking. I was at one point relatively fluent in Japanese, which I began studying intensively as a child (first Japanese homestay/intensive study in the 1990s!) both in Japan and at Universities in the USA. I earned 3 years of university credit in Japanese at Harvard University by the time I was 17, before I began study at Yale, where I exhausted the Japanese language offerings and earned an independent tutorial my senior year. For me, the discipline and persistence necessary to learn Japanese was driven by my sheer love of connecting and communicating. I do standup comedy and voice acting as well as acting. I performed as a comic in the New York Underground Comedy Festival and the Burbank Comedy Festival, and at venues throughout LA including the Comedy Store. I was trained vocally and sang as a featured vocalist at the Mildura Jazz Festival and throughout Australia (primarily Melbourne, Perth and Cairns) and New Zealand (primarily Queenstown and Raglan, and other towns in both North and South islands). I do accented sketch characters and standup comedy. My accents include: German, Texan, Southern, Israeli, UK posh, Scottish, Irish, Boston, French, and a few others. Specialties: Reporting/writing, comedy, business development, photography, voice over, acting and presenting, research and policy briefing papers, cross-cultural endeavours and adventure tourism, photography, mediation and conflict resolution, IT writing, technical writing, grant writing, marketing, journalism, sales, Japanese.