A fourth-generation descendant of Japanese Americans forced to leave the San Francisco Bay Area, Courtney is committed to ensuring the shameful history of the WWII incarceration is not forgotten and that its lessons are applied to the fight for social justice for all.

Courtney currently serves on the board of the Topaz Museum, where her family was incarcerated during the war. A parent of two, she served for six years as a board member of Daruma No Gakko, a summer program designed for elementary and middle school students to learn about Japanese American heritage, and served a three-year term on the Council of Friends of the Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley.

Previously, Courtney worked for over a decade at a fast-growing education technology company, eventually holding roles on the executive management team leading marketing and strategic partnerships. She has worked in various roles in both for-profit and nonprofit organizations. She started her work in the Japanese American community at the Japanese Cultural and Community Center of Northern California in San Francisco’s Japantown.

Courtney has been designing and facilitating learning experiences for adults in a variety of professions, from nurses to university educators and corporate sales professionals for over two decades. Her prior experience also includes instructional design for both online and live learning experiences, the evaluation of emerging technologies for education, assisting educators in their use of technology, website design and development, and media production. 

She earned her Bachelor’s degree in Psychology magna cum laude from Harvard and her MA in Educational Communication and Technology from New York University’s Steinhardt School of Education.