I come from a scientific academic perspective with a creative lens. I am a neuroscience and French dual-degree on the pre-med track with the intention of gaining an MD/MPH degree to work in Doctors without Borders and create documentaries based on my work within the program. I tend to see the world as a positive realist, and I look for the little things in life to make me happy. I approach issues and topics with an open mind. I like to hear both sides of the story and think about all the pros and cons before I create my own opinion. I am a true empath; I can embody the feelings of those around me, and oftentimes it is even difficult for me to separate my emotions from someone else’s until I ask them if it is them or me. I am interested in stories that typically no one would think about, or issues with various nuances that others might deem not important. I like stories that disprove other stories; stories that show the passions that people can have and stories that bring light and humanity to certain areas that were noted as lacking. This year I will be teaching yoga and meditation twice a week to the Gracedale Nursing Home as a research Preminger Fellow to track the effect of mindfulness on the quality of life. I am interested in using documentary as a means to help track my research efforts and to get to know the members of the Lehigh Valley aging populations even better! It would be a lovely tie in to my science background and my artistic side.  I also am interested in doing a documentary about some of the local shop owners of Easton, especially the local artists.

I have considered myself to be a documentarian for quite some time now. Ever since I can remember, I always carried a camera with me wherever I went. When I was really young, it was using disposal cameras on every family vacation, and when digital cameras finally were created during my elementary school days, I brought it to every school basketball game, friend’s birthday party, and classic sleepover I went to. I loved observing those around me from behind the lens, especially strangers. I still remember going to Kings Island (a large amusement park in my hometown, Cincinnati) and sitting on park benches just people watching and photographing the pass-byers. I was captivated by the unknown stories about who these people were and what their life story was. I bought a Flip Cam in 2008, and since then started introducing videography into my life. I upgraded to a DSLR in high school, and would film street festivals and concerts, and even created a super amateur documentary about 18 Random Acts of Kindness I did on my 18^th I am a CaPA scholar for photography and initially thought for my final project I was going make a “The Real Lafayette: Leopards After Hours” documentary about my dorm-mates and so even though I have no actual edited content, I have a lot of raw video footage of my friends from freshmen year.

This past semester I was abroad in Paris and able to take a photography studio course in which we chose a theme to work on throughout the semester. I have always been interested in learning more about those experiencing homelessness who live on the streets, but had always been too afraid to gather the courage to just talk to people, hear their story, and take their photograph until this course. Talking to the people on the streets of Paris was an extra level of difficulty because I had to converse in French, but with some graceful pushing from my studio assistant, I was out the door and had several rolls of film of various France inhabitants. In addition to those experiencing homelessness, I really enjoy all sorts of photojournalism related to social justice issues. It sounds cliché, but a photograph really does tell 1,000 words and I love that documentary can tell even more with the combination of narrative and photos. With documentary, I hope to be able to help give a mic to those who want to raise their voice and express their opinions but have been unable to do this do to factors outside of their own control.

The reflection is everything.

I spent Saturday framing everything I saw and ended up seeing things I would have walked right past by. When I was simply holding my “frame” to the table at Five Guys I noticed some waste that I didn’t even see before. I saw how important it was to chose how I framed objects around me because it can change the story you are telling. For example while I was on the shuttle bus I was framing my bookbag, the windows, and people around me. When I was framing my bookbag I noticed that depending on where I placed my frame it could make things look awkward, too cluttered or aesthetically pleasing. By changing the distance of where I was holding my “frame” it dictated what was the main subject, the background and my message. I saw things in a different perspective and saw that everything around me could be another story told.

        I see the world as something that I want to keep on learning about. I have always been curious and growing up I wanted to be a million different things. However, throughout all my different phases I always liked holding up a camera and recording what was going on around me. I’m majoring in film and media but I’m contemplating double majoring in government and law or anthropology and sociology. I might end up double majoring and minoring because I like learning about so many different things.

        When I approach a story I want to know more about it and learn as much as I can. I would be interested in showing stories of the unseen, of filming with minorities and showing the injustices they have to encounter everyday. It’s cliche but I want to give people who don’t think they have a voice, a voice. If I could choose a place in the Lehigh Valley to tell a story at it, it would be at the women’s shelter. It would be interesting to hear their stories, find out how they ended up there, and find out their future plans. There are so many stories to be heard and captured, and I would love to be a part of that.

          I document my life all the time. I post videos and pictures about my life on social media outlets such as snapchat, instagram, twitter, and facebook. When something interesting happens the first thing that comes to my mind is whipping out my phone and documenting it. On snapchat I post a couple of times a day and on other social media platforms I post about once a week. I like documenting and saving those memories so I can replay them as much as possible. I can’t relive them but when I replay those memories it feels like I can. Recently, one of my hard disks completely broke down and stopped working. All the videos I had on it like the videos I took on my birthday were deleted. I almost started tearing up because those videos meant so much. Constantly documenting my life has become a norm and I can’t imagine my life without it.