Beginnings

My journey into Chinese medicine began in the mid-90s when I completed a certificate program at the Acupressure Institute in Berkeley. Although not explicitly advertised as such, the curriculum was deeply rooted in the Five Element style. At that point I didn’t understand there were different styles of acupuncture and figured that Chinese medicine was all the same. Eager to immerse myself in the field, I took a job managing a local acupuncture practice.

It was a unique, vibrant home-office where the dining table served as my desk, the living room was the waiting area, and the first-floor rooms were treatment spaces. Managing the office required unique skills, like keeping the cat off my paperwork and herding boisterous groups of highschoolers upstairs after a 3 pm kitchen raid.

One day over lunch, the practitioner—who happened to have trained directly under Five Element founder J.R. Worsley—looked at me and said, "There is a school on the East Coast you really should check out." My initial thought was, "East Coast? I don’t think so." But I knew that if I was going to invest my time and money into this vocation, I wanted the best education possible. A year later, on a beautiful August morning, I drove out of Berkeley heading for new adventures. I returned to Berkeley in 2005 and have spent the last two decades practicing solo, substituting for practitioners on vacation and spent some time at a couple of herbal companies.

Background

I graduated in 2002 from the Traditional Acupuncture Institute (TAI) in Maryland, the first accredited acupuncture school in the United States. Though it later evolved into the Tai-Sophia Institute and eventually became part of Maryland University of Integrative Health, its foundational legacy of excellence remains central to my practice.

My clinical training included specialized, community-focused care. I provided addiction-recovery acupuncture (using the NADA protocol) at the Baltimore City Detention Center and the Penn-North Neighborhood Center. During my senior internship, I treated patients living with HIV and AIDS at the Sign of Jonah Clinic in Washington, D.C. After earning my degree, I began my private practice in Maryland and served as the acupuncturist for an outpatient recovery program. Beyond direct patient care, I have worked with herbal companies formulating and manufacturing high-quality herbal tinctures and topicals.