She received a PhD in anthropology at the University of Iowa, Iowa City, USA, in 2009. She has been researching the relationships between religion and economic activities, representations of cultural and religious minorities, and short- and long-term cross-cultural experiences. Before returning to Japan, she worked in the United States and Bangladesh as a university and college instructor. For two decades, she has been studying the Amish and Mennonites in the United States, and she has published several articles in English and Japanese on this topic.