Throughout Sarah’s childhood, academic, and career endeavors - one thing has been constant - storytelling is at the forefront. With a background in theatre, a degree in Communication Arts, and over 10 years of experience working as a Creative Director in arts and education, Sarah aims to take her Narrative Chinese Medicine approach mainstream. She strongly believes the medical profession greatly benefits when artists become healers.

Academic Highlights

Professional Highlights

DAcCHM CANDIDATE

Doctor of Acupuncture and Chinese Herbal Medicine

DISSERTATION * in progress *

Narrative Chinese Medicine: The Use of

Seasonal Journal Prompts as Narrative Inquiry

SUMMA CUM LAUDE VALEDICTORIAN

Pasadena City College • Associates in Communication Arts

Undergrad GPA: 4.0

MAcCHM GPA: 3.93, DAcCHM GPA: 4.0

SCHOLARSHIP AWARDS

MAcCHM President’s Academic Scholarship

Savannah College of Art & Design Artistic Scholarship

Savannah College of Art & Design Academic Scholarship

creative directOR, PLATFORM director

2014 - Present

The ACME Network, a nonprofit 501 (c) (3) organization, bridges the gap between the classroom and the workplace. The ACME Network is a work-based learning community designed for students, teachers, and industry mentors. “ACME Connect”, an award-winning platform, is a virtual learning environment built on a unique “pay-it-forward” mentorship model. ACME facilitates professional development for educators, provides industry-level curriculum and mentoring within the classroom, and creates virtual internship opportunities for the next generation of artists, designers, and engineers.

Editorial Art Direction, Floral STYLING/Design

2015 - 2020

With a bold and untamed approach to flowers, Sarah's floral creations have graced the pages of editorial fashion magazine covers, bridal blogs (Martha Stewart Weddings, Style Me Pretty), and appeared in “adventure elopements” in National Parks across the country.

COMMUNITY ACUPUCTURE EXTERNSHIP

Fall 2022, Spring 2023, Summer 2023

STUDENT ADVISORY BOARD MEMBER

Spring 2024

Top Skills & Proficiencies

A sampling of Sarah’s academic papers, projects, and presentations created throughout the 4 years of her MAcCHM program.

The art of living “with the seasons”

- a narrative approach to Chinese Medicine and Five Element theory using journal prompts as a guide.

A survivor-led, social action

organization founded in 2023

by Sarah focusing on intern safety and TCM education reform.

Activism

Sarah’s activism uses the principles of Narrative Medicine, the topic of her Doctoral research, to propel the TCM profession into the modern era. She uses her background in theatre and her work experience as a Creative Director to amplify the voices of student interns.

Focusing on intern safety and ethical boundaries, she aims to change policies and standards that do not serve students. Her personal trauma and activism led her to create the social action organization, Dear Intern.

keep scrolling to learn more...

In an attempt to give meaning to her trauma, Sarah wrote a letter to herself entitled, “Dear Intern”. Through this letter, she employed concepts of narrative healing to affirm - to herself, fellow survivors, peers, and educators - that intern safety, ethical boundaries, and clearly defined SOP’s, are essential,

Sarah took a six week vow-of-silence while on campus to raise awareness to the gaps in intern safety. Putting her doctoral research to the test, she used the principles of Narrative Medicine as a tool for expressing and processing her own trauma. A QR code allowed Sarah to use the written word to regain a sense of safety while providing weekly updates for her community to grow and heal alongside her.

One who knows does not speak, One who speaks does not know.

- Dao De Jing, Chapter 56

As a Public Health initiative, Sarah, alongside three other students, created a TCM “zine” for campus and clinic distribution. Sarah managed the project from start to finish and served as Art Director, graphic designer, and contributing author.

To place emphasis on the ethics benevolence, and Taoist roots of TCM, Sarah recorded the moment her cohort took the “Oath of the Great Physician” (Sun Si Miao) when they embarked on their clinical internship.

In a letter written to her institution, Sarah used research to effect policy change that better served student interns. She identified shortcomings within her institution's clinic manual and advocated for a safer, impartial, and student-centered process. A student-centered learning model has four main characteristics: voice, choice, competency-based progression, and continuous monitoring of student needs (Harrington & DeBruler, 2019). These characteristics must not only be applied to the curriculum but the policies that institutions have in place.