Painesville, Ohio is my birthplace, not far from the Finnish community of Fairport Harbor on the shores of Lake Erie, so I heard Finnish from very early on. My native language is US English, but because I’ve lived in Europe for over 14 years, I can work your text into UK or ‘neutral’ English instead. I spent my junior year abroad studying at Lund University and returned for a second graduate year, studying Finnish and Icelandic.

I earned my B.A. summa cum laude and M.A. in Scandinavian Literature from UCLA. My PhD is from Yale University in Germanic Languages, and my dissertation explored an aspect of Finland-Swedish letters, namely how this national literature portrayed Finnish speakers over the span of about 50 years during the 19^th century. I taught Finnish-English translation at the University of Eastern Finland 2012-2018, and I began to work full-time as a professional translator in 2019.

I am a member of the Swedish-English Literary Translators’ Association, Suomen Kääntäjien ja Tulkkeiden Liitto (The Finnish Association of Translators and Interpreters) and the Society of Authors, where I serve on the Committee of the Translators Association.