Originally from Laos, Khanthida is a second-year Ph.D. Student in Theatre History and Performance Studies at the University of Washington. Her research centers on Southeast Asian and Southeast Asian Diasporas performances. Currently, her project has two strands: (1) the relationship between traditional performance and the government's usage of performance in cultivating a sense of united national identity during the late 19th and early 20th century, and (2) diaspora performances that capture and remember traditional values and homes that no longer exist in the original land, theorizing these as their own utopia that travels across time and place, and are in danger of extintion. In both, she explores the complicated relationships between the government and its people, the conflicts among the diverse ethnicities within each country, and the transnational disputes over what constitutes traditional performances, their origins, and claims to authenticity. 

Her other areas of research include intercultural, multicultural, and intracultural theatre. At the University of Houston, she researched 20th-century intercultural theatre, surveying its emergence and transition and analyzing two intercultural performances from the West and the East. Khanthida investigated the power dynamics within the rehearsal space and what intercultural performance signified to its audience. 

Along with research, Khanthida is a passionate mover and educator. She enjoys participating in collaborative work for both devised theatre pieces and dance projects, as well as traditional Laotian dance. She has taught and assisted K-12 classes as a teacher and teaching artist at the Children's Theatre Company (Minneapolis), Franklin Fine Arts Center (Chicago), and Seattle Children’s Theatre, as well as undergraduate courses at the University of Houston and the University of Washington.