About

What’s in a name?

To me, a lot. My name is an accumulation of all the hopes and desires of my family when they fled Vietnam after the Fall of Saigon, it is my mother’s dreams when she built her life in America. Each name I am given was given with intention.

Joie is French for ‘joy’, Nikita is Russian for ‘unconquerable’, and Ha is Chinese for ‘to question’.  And with that I aim to be constantly curious, steadfast in my beliefs, and always on the pursuit of happiness.

I am a lot of things: activist, community builder, event planner, research anthropologist, creative soul, and most of all, adventurer. To learn more about what I do, check out the other links under my ‘About.’