Wood drinks water to grow, fire destroys wood to fan its flames, earth covers fire to extinguish it, and water turns earth into mud. Messages and I are like water…ubiquitous. We pour into everything, can be healing and destroying, calming and agitating, nurturing and flooding, kind and cruel. We are everywhere like the ocean, uncontrollable like a waterfall, explosive like a geyser, and mysterious like fog or steam. My consulting, teaching, writing, photography, documentary film-making and research are all very much informed by the ever-evolving breadth of our own linguistic, communicative, and educational cross-cultural experiences. My formal education and training at City University of New York – Hunter College (M.F.A. – Integrated Media Arts NonFiction Documentary Filmmaking 2016), NYU’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development (Ph.D. International Education 2007, M.A. Speech & Interpersonal Communication 2001), as well as Boston University’s College of Communication (B.S. Mass Communication Studies, French 1994), informally the world has for years been my cross-cultural classroom. I have traveled to 64 countries and have had the chance to do graduate coursework and research projects in several of them: human rights in Rio de Janeiro Brazil, multicultural education in Shanghai China, filmmaking in San Antonio de los Baños, Cuba, French language in Grenoble France, teaching English in Hiroshima Japan, Lithuanian language in Vilnius Lithuania, ethnographic research methodology in Mexico City Mexico, reconciliation and peace-building fieldwork in Johannesburg South Africa, HIV & AIDS prevention in Kampala Uganda and throughout South Africa, and educational theater in London United Kingdom, just to name a few. Each trip has contributed to my intercultural development and awareness in some way, and I aspire to continue to educate and create social change through positive examples of personal and public empowerment.