My teaching philosophy is to teach traditional design principles while actively incorporating new perspectives that emerge from students.

At the foundation of my teaching is the script. I encourage students to engage deeply with the text and explore how spatial design can respond to dramatic structure, character, and storytelling. Reading and interpreting a script is, in my view, the most important starting point in the design process.

In the classroom, I emphasize open discussion and collaborative thinking. Students are encouraged to share ideas, question interpretations, and discover how design can support the work of directors, playwrights, and performers.

I am also interested in developing international collaborative projects and educational exchanges between the United States and Japan, particularly in areas related to scenography and theater culture.

I have nearly ten years of teaching experience at both the undergraduate and graduate levels.

I teach scenic design and scenic painting as an adjunct professor at Fairleigh Dickinson University. Previously, I taught graduate students in the Directing and Playwriting programs at The New School for Drama.

In these courses, I worked with students who were not primarily designers, but directors and playwrights developing their own theatrical work. The focus of the class was to explore how directors, playwrights, and designers communicate and collaborate during the creative process. Students examined how research materials, visual references, and design concepts can influence the way a script is interpreted, written, and staged.

Because many of my students are not design majors, I strive to teach not only technical skills such as sketching, drafting, and model-making, but also the broader design process and the role of scenography in collaborative theater-making.

One assignment I particularly enjoy is the “Music Project.” Inspired by a class I experienced at Yale with Professor Ming Cho Lee, students begin by listening to a piece of music and imagining the world it suggests. They then write a short script and design a set for the piece.

This project encourages students to think across disciplines and explore how sound, text, and visual space interact in theatrical storytelling. It also helps reveal each student's creative instincts and interests.

Beyond classroom exercises, I emphasize hands-on experience whenever possible. In production environments, I work closely with students through every stage of the design process—from conceptual development and research to drafting, model-making, and execution on stage. As a mentor, I strive to support students while guiding them toward realizing their own ideas and artistic goals.