Photo Credit: Chat Hull

I am currently an astrophysics graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley. Since moving here in 2008, I have enjoyed singing, hiking, rock climbing, camping, bicycling, motorcycling, skiing, and sampling the high quality jazz, classical, and bluegrass scenes that the Bay Area has to offer. That is, of course, when I haven’t been teaching, engaging in research, or observing at CARMA.

I hail from the tiny town of Penn Yan (short for “Pennsylvania Yankees”), in the beautiful Finger Lakes region of New York State, known for its picturesque glacial lakes, rolling hills, and exquisite white wines (try the Riesling!).

At age 14, I left home and headed south to Woodberry Forest School, an all-male boarding high school school in central Virginia. Upon graduating from Woodberry, I attended the University of Virginia, where I majored in physics and minored in Spanish. I also tutored athletes in Calculus; performed in musicals with the First Year Players; and sang a cappella with the New Dominions, classical opuses with the University Singers, and jazz with the UVa Jazz Ensemble and various small groups.

I taught for two years after college, both at Woodberry and for the Charlottesville-based Ixtatán Foundation, which helped create Yinhatil Nab’en, a high school in the rural, Mayan town of San Mateo Ixtatán, Guatemala (click here to read the blog I kept while living in Guatemala).

After my stint as a high school teacher, I moved out west and began my astronomical career.