Gillie first fell in love with Japan as a curious child growing up with watching anime. What started with a simple interest with anime songs transformed into fascination with the Japanese language and eventually, culture and history. She has been living in Tokyo since 2019 when she arrived as a research student as one of the recipients of MEXT Scholarship awarded by the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. She continued her studies and finished her master's degree in International Studies at Waseda University. Her research interests include contemporary Japanese society, migrant worker policy, gender studies, and Japanese culture and history. Prior to coming to Japan she was involved in digital humanities research, documenting and digitizing cultural performances. Also, before being an inhabitant of the busy capital Tokyo, she briefly lived in Nagasaki (2012) and Okinawa (2018), exposing her to the different sides of Japan. She enjoys the outdoors and being surrounded by nature.