Hi, I’m Iris — I’m so glad you’re here.

I was born and raised in Nanchang, a small city in southern China, and moved to the U.S. when I was ten. I didn’t grow up watching films or going to the theater, but I always had an instinct for performance — recruiting my younger cousins to listen to the latest things I’d learned, raiding adults’ closets, being a clown and making my family laugh.

Some part of me kept nurturing that sense of curiosity and wonder for both the arts and the human experience. While studying psychology at Harvard to better understand the mind, I discovered cinema through courses in East Asian and European film. Around the same time, I wandered into my first acting class at MIT (just down the road) — and everything changed.

Since then, acting has taken me across continents and stages — from studying in Hong Kong and Berlin to training in Shakespeare at RADA and the Guildhall in London. I recently completed my MFA in Acting at UC San Diego, where I deepened not just my technique, but my belief in storytelling as a way of making space for honesty, hope, and humanity.

When I see a great performance — when an actor is fully open, willing to receive and experience the human condition — I’m deeply moved by the sheer generosity of it. That kind of presence gives me a little more courage in my own life. Acting has made me more compassionate toward myself and others, and my deepest wish is for my work to offer that same sense of connection, honesty, and hope to those who experience it.

Outside of acting, I love hiking, meditating in nature, and striking up conversations with kind strangers. I recently walked the Camino de Santiago solo — 640 kilometers across Spain in 25 days. I also volunteer at teen mindfulness camp at Deer Park Monastery (my favorite place on earth), and I’m always dreaming up my next solo adventure — the Tour du Mont Blanc in the Alps, or the Shikoku Pilgrimage in Japan.

Thanks for stopping by. I’m really happy to share a little piece of my world with you.