Research Fields 
  • Professional Girlfriends
  • Sexuality, Solidarity and ‘Bar Girl’ Subculture in Cambodia
  • Transactional Sex in Cambodia and Beyond
  • Nighttime Economies
  • Transnational Relationships and Intimacy
  • Diaspora and Transnationalism 
  • International Sex Worker Activism
  • Sex Work and Migration
  • Sexual Scripts
  • Queer Post-Migrant Socialities 
  • LGBT Organizing and Activism
  • Alternative Kinship
  • Social Exclusion and Stigma
  • Drug Use and Cultural Criminology
  • Forced Deportation


Research Projects
  • SexHum - Migration, Sex Work and Trafficking (European Research Council, Kingston University - London)
  • Professional Girlfriends, Transactional Relationships and the Hostess Bar Scene in Cambodia (Goldsmiths College, University of London)
  • Forced Deportation and Drug Use Among  Cambodian-American Refugees (or ‘Khmer Exiled Americans’) (Institute of South East Asian Affairs)
  • Queer Post-Migrant Socialities Among British-Asians in London (European Research Council), Goethe University - Frankfurt, Germany) 
  • Prescription Drug Diversion and Street Drug Use in New York City (National Development and Research Institutes, New York City)

Education, Activism and Research Experience
I received my Bachelor's of Science (BS) in Education with a minor in Anthropology and a Concentration in Special Education and Music from State University of New York (SUNY) Plattsburgh in 2001. I traveled the world and taught for nearly three years, and then in 2006 received my Master's in Anthropology from the CIty University of New York (CUNY) at Hunter College. And in 2010, I received my PhD in Social Science (Anthropology and Sociology) and Media and Communications from Goldsmiths, University of London, under the supervision of Prof Angela McRobbie. 

As part of my PhD, I designed and facilitated an action-based peer education research project in Phnom Penh titled the Global Girls: Autobiography and E-Literacy Project. This project provided young women employed in bars and clubs the opportunity to participate in free English language and computer literacy training. I'm is also actively involved in the international harm reduction and sex worker rights movement, and I sat on the inaugural Program Advisory Committee for the Red Umbrella Fund (2012-2015), a new international fund that provides grant money to self-organized grassroots sex worker projects and networks globally. In London, I taught English to migrant sex workers through the X:talk Project. I used to be co-organizer and member of the steering committee for the Sex Worker Open University in London, which provides professional development classes and community building events for sex workers, and I'm currently a member of Sex Worker's Outreach Project in New York City, as well as the Center for LGBTQ Studies (CUNY).

I've worked on research projects with London Metropolitan University based on the experience of migrant sex workers in London’s indoor sex industry. I've been a consultant ethnographer for Goethe University in Germany, where I conducted ethnographic research on new migrant socialities with a focus on London’s queer British-Asian dance club scene.  I've lectured Social Anthropology at Birkbeck, University of London, and I currently lecture Gender and Sexuality studies through ISEAA in Phnom Penh, and Sex and Culture at John Jay College CUNY.  I'm also a full time professor in the Department of Science, School of Liberal Arts at Berkeley College, NYC, where I teach Human Sexuality, Drug Policy, Addiction and Global health courses. I completed a two-year postdoctoral fellowship at NDRI in New York, which is a public health and drug research institute funded by the NIH, where I conducted research on deported Cambodian-American refugees, as well as prescription drug diversion and street drug users in NYC.  I am currently postdoctoral researcher/ethnographer on a European Research Council study titled "SexHum - Migration, Sex Work and Trafficking", based at Kingston University in London, with principal investigator, Nicola Mai.  I'll be researching how anti-trafficking efforts affect migrant sex workers in New York City. 


Link to my profile on www.academia.edu