"Professionally I’m a linguist (PhD, Stanford) and techie (BS, MS Electrical Engineering, Stanford). My research has focused on American Sign Language and language in the Asian American community, and I’ve worked in digital design and computational linguistics. Primarily I am sansei - third generation Japanese American - and a taiko player. I was a charter member of Stanford Taiko, played with San Jose Taiko, and now play with Jun Daiko, the resident taiko group at the Mountain View Buddhist Temple. We initiated this taiko seminar after organizing the first-ever gathering of collegiate taiko players, hosted by Stanford Taiko in 1995. At that time there was just enough written work on taiko to create a thin reader. Since then the taiko community and the research on taiko have both grown, as has our commitment to share the story of this physically demanding and visually dynamic art form."