Background Information

Biographical Information

Having been brought up in Japan and spending my adult years in the United States while being a citizen of Thailand with an Indian ancestry and having attended international schools throughout most of my primary and secondary academic careers, I have experienced my share of identity crises with all the conflicting social expectations, norms, and cultural ideals for how to be a good person surrounding my life. Despite my predicament, my parents, who frequently migrated across various countries throughout their lives, were thoughtful enough to eclectically expose me to a variety of belief systems, values, behavioral norms, and social expectations to promote flexibility, adaptability, and understanding toward different peoples, different cultural imperatives, and drastically different social realities.

Throughout my primary and secondary school years, I attended Canadian Academy International school in Kobe, Japan. In 1994, I graduated from the University of Oregon with a Bachelor of Science majoring in Psychology and Economics and minoring in Business Administration. While at University of Oregon, I assisted Dr. Shinobu Kitayama, a social psychologist, with research studies looking at cross-cultural differences in self-construal and self-esteem between Japan and the United States. Dr. Kitayama left the University of Oregon in March of 1993 to accept a position at Kyoto University (Kyoto, Japan), from which time I took over the culture project at the University of Oregon on Dr. Kitayama's behalf to keep his project running until September of 1995.

I got my Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology in June of 2003 from the University of Massachusetts at Boston. Although I am interested in clinical issues such as well-being, happiness, depression, and social anxiety, I approach these interests from social and cultural psychological perspectives. Cultural psychology is a field which incorporates culture into psychological models with the goal of expanding basic psychological theories. Since August of 2003, I have been a faculty of cultural psychology at Minnesota State University.  See the link to "My Work" for more information about the kind of research I do.

Institutions I've attended or am currently attending:

Minnesota State University -- Where I now work.

Kyoto University -- Where I did my research fellowship.

University of Pennsylvania -- Where I did my full time clinical internship.

Univ of Massachusetts-Boston -- Where I got my M.A. and Ph.D.

University of Oregon -- Where I did got my B.S.

Beloit College -- Where I went my first year in college.

Canadian Academy -- Where I attended elementary school, middle school, and high school.

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