About Me
My name is Leah Reich, and this is my professional home on the web. I’m an ethnographer and sociologist by training, a writer and dynamic public speaker, and a photographer. I’ve lived parts of my life online in some form or other since 1992, so it’s entirely possible we may have met.
I started out on the east coast, spent some time up in the Colorado high country, and hightailed it out to Berkeley as soon as I finished high school. In 1996 I graduated UC Berkeley with a B.A. in Comparative Literature. I stayed in the Bay Area long enough to become Ask Leah, the advice columnist for video gamers on IGN.com. I left to get my Master’s from Georgetown in Communication, Culture, and Technology, which I finished in 2003 (while occasionally playing in a rock band). In 2011, I received my Ph.D. in Sociology from UC Irvine. I’m currently interested in doing work that allows me to engage in research and then use that research to help develop products and organizational strategies. I love engaging with people while conducting research, but I’ve missed engaging with people to help them solve the problem too.
In my personal life, I enjoy photography (portfolio coming soon), walking Berkeley's hills and secret paths, road trips, hiking, baking, making people laugh with ridiculous and sometimes outré jokes, making friends with every available cat and dog, and singing.