Hi there! I’m a Los Angeles-based freelance writer and a current healthcare fellow at Business Insider. As a freelancer, I cover food, health, and wellness with an eye to unique subcultures and stories primarily set in Southern California. My other interests include broader science and health narratives and Asian American issues. As of 2021, I’m open to branded content and copywriting opportunities as well–please email me for my full portfolio.
Past bylines: The New York Times (Styles desk), Bon Appetit's Basically, Eater, Healthline's Greatist, The Counter, Los Angeles Times (Lifestyle section), Southern California Public Radio’s LAist, Los Angeles Magazine, and more.
In 2020, I got my master’s degree in journalism from USC, where I completed a thesis on the dark side of ketamine, a so-called mental health panacea. Before that, I attended UCLA, where I graduated summa cum laude with a B.S. in Human Biology and Society and edited the Daily Bruin’s award-winning blog, The Quad. On the side, I write personal essays, creative nonfiction, and poetry.
Beyond old school reporting, I’ve also built out the requisite multimedia skill set needed to survive in a digital ecosystem, including podcast production, broadcast scriptwriting, and video editing. On the design side, I’m handy with Adobe Illustrator and After Effects, with a solid front-end skill set for digital-first journalism (HTML, CSS, JS) and experience with mapping (Leaflet) as well as data scraping and visualization (Carto, ArcGIS, spreadsheets).
My last name is pronounced « yō ».