Coleen's travels have taken her throughout the Philippines, from the southernmost tip of India to the Tibetan community’s home in exile at the foot of the Himalayas. Coleen’s interest in storytelling began in the summer of 2007 with her first reporting project, on gentrification in Harlem, which continues to frame her photography and writing.

In 2011, a travel-reporting grant from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting and the Dean Rusk International Studies Program at Davidson College allowed her to examine the impact of environmental exploitation in the Philippines. Coleen is currently an M.S. candidate at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism in New York City.