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Biography

I am a PhD researcher in Film Studies with an MFA in Animation and Digital Art from Pratt Institute. My work focuses on how audiences empathise with morally ambiguous characters and villains in film, animation, and video games.

I started my PhD with a question: How does what we believe is true shape how we perceive others? How does that shape who we think deserves our empathy? Whose stories have we seen on screen, and to whom do they belong? I am deeply interested in how Western media portrays cultures as "villains", reducing them to threats, exotic, and vicious.

I examine how Orientalism, gender, and cultural stereotyping make empathy selective, dictating who is seen as fully "human" and who is reduced to an "other." Drawing on postcolonial theory, psychoanalysis, and film criticism, I analyse the narrative and aesthetic tools that construct these hierarchies of humanity. Ultimately, my research asks us to confront the inherited biases embedded in our stories and to choose to see truly.

Prizes and Awards

2024; Best MFA In Show, Pratt Institute

2024; International Independent Film Awards