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. Her first project archives memories of Southeast Asian diasporas in crossing the Mekong River to building a new home, using ethnography as a method to recall and re-enact memories. For this project, she also engages with communities and analyzes their cultural and performance work geared towards second-generation immigrants. Her second project examines the relationship between Southeast Asian traditional performance and the government's use of performance to cultivate a sense of a united national identity during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In this project, she illuminates the complex relationships between the government and its people, the conflicts among the diverse ethnic groups within each Southeast Asian country, and the transnational disputes over what constitutes traditional performances and national identities.

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.