I define myself professionally as an educational anthropologist and an early childhood education specialist. My education was interdisciplinary, with coursework in anthropology, sociology, and child development and a Ph.D. from the Committee on Human Development at the University of Chicago and a post-doctoral fellowship at the East-West Center in Honolulu. My principal doctoral mentors were Robert A LeVine (who is an emeritus professor at the Harvard Graduates School of Education) and Takeo Doi (a Japanese psychoanalyst, most famous for his work on Japanese ethnopsychiatry).  

My job title is The Elizabeth Garrard Hall Professor of Early Childhood Education at the University of Georgia. I joined the faculty at UGA in 2011. Before that I taught for many years at the University of Arizona University and the University of Hawai`i and for a year at the University of New Hampshire. I have been a visiting professor at the University of Chicago and the University of Paris.