[2] She received a Bachelor of Arts in Sculpture and Environmental Science from Wesleyan University.
[1] While in college in 1995, she visited Kobe, Japan where her parents had recently moved after the Great Hanshin Earthquake.
[1] As the director of MIT's Urban Risk Lab, she leads multiple regional, national and international scale projects focusing on questions of resilience, design, and technology to improve disaster preparedness.
The Urban Risk Lab's interdisciplinary work incorporates local communities, nonprofits, governments, educational institutions, and international corporations to develop "methods, prototypes and technologies to embed risk reduction and preparedness into the design of cities and regions to increase the resilience of local communities.
"[4] Previous collaborations includes those with FEMA, USAID, Broward County, Florida, Tata Center, Line, Neighborhood Empowerment Network, Singapore University of Technology and Design, and the Resichauer Institute of Japanese Studies at Harvard University.