It took me a while to find my calling in journalism.
I grew up in Kathmandu, Nepal, where my American parents sent me to an international school with kids from around the world. After graduating college in Minnesota, I moved to Senegal, where as a Peace Corps volunteer. I worked with local farmers to plant trees and kept a regular blog. Returning to Nepal, I worked in international development and education before transitioning to journalism, writing for the international media about politics, the environment and human rights issues.
There aren’t many newspapers left willing to invest the time and resources telling these important, deeply researched stories. I’m glad to work for one of them.
Before joining Newsday as a transportation reporter in 2024, I worked for The Columbus Dispatch, the daily newspaper in Ohio’s capital, covering immigrant communities and religion.
It’s been a pleasure to return to Long Island, where my mother’s side of the family is originally from and where I spent summers as a kid swimming and sailing in Peconic Bay and working at a local farm. I have family on the North Fork.
To get to stories, I’ve hiked, biked, and ridden motorcycles, overcrowded buses and tuk-tuks. I speak fluent English and Nepali, plus intermediate Spanish and Wolof.
Transportation is an important topic for Long Islanders. I’m deeply interested in what can be done to ease the movement of people and goods across the Island, hemmed in as it is by geography. I seek to cover the environmental, social and economic aspects of our transportation systems.
I’ve contributed to the year-long investigative series Dangerous Roads, where my colleagues and I delved into what makes driving on the Island so dangerous and what can be done to fix it. There aren’t many newspapers left willing to invest the time and resources telling these important, deeply researched stories. I’m glad to work for one of them.
