Lisa is a native of the Washington, D.C., metro area but has also lived in the Southern U.S. and Japan. She obtained her undergraduate degree at Boston University in 2009 in the Bachelor of Fine Arts where she studied Studio Arts and Philosophy. Deciding to switch career and disciplinary tracks, Lisa went on to gain a Master of Arts in International Commerce and Policy at George Mason University in Arlington, VA and also participated in a summer course abroad in South Africa. The decision to change disciplinary approaches was informed by wanting to take a more activist approach to issues of race, gender, and global inequality. Becoming critically aware of the institutional processes involved with global financial flows and the developing world, Lisa seeks to critique these processes through her doctoral research in South Africa where she will investigate race, commercial agriculture, and the police state in relation to land restitution post-apartheid.