I'm originally from Socorro, New Mexico, a small town located in the Rio Grande Valley near the center of the state. I lived there for most of the first 18 years of my life, excepting a period from 1992-1993 when I lived in Pasadena, California and then Toronto, Ontario (about five months in each location).
I graduated from Socorro High School in May 2000 and from Cornell University (BA, Physics) in May 2004. Currently I'm a graduate student in the astronomy department at the University of California at Berkeley, in my third year of probably six or seven total before I (if all goes well) earn a Ph.D. and continue on into a post-doc program and eventually a career in astronomy research (or possibly teaching or software development.)
I'm currently working in the field of gamma-ray bursts, the most powerful explosions in the universe. My work has mostly been observational, though aside from that restriction in the 1.5 years I've worked in the topic I've looked at everything from light curve modeling (analyzing how quickly the light from a GRB fades) to host galaxy spectroscopy (measuring distances and chemical compositions of galaxies from which GRBs originate) to looking for oscillations in the high-energy data from Earth-orbiting satellites. This is hardly the only thing that interests me in the wide world of astronomy, however. There remains a small (if fading) possibility that I will switch to something else as a thesis topic, and a somewhat greater possibility that I'll go into a different, though likely related, line of work after that. Aside from GRBs, I'm particularly interested in I'm interested in computational astronomy (including both astrophysical simulations and the automated processing of wide-field observational or survey data), galaxy and galaxy cluster dynamics, stellar astronomy, and astrobiology.
I have a few additional interests in academics outside astronomy. Computer programming is certainly a major one; some of the programs I've written are over in the programs section. I'm also very interested in biology - specifically, evolutionary biology, natural history, and zoology (mammalogy in particular), and to a lesser extent biophysics. Geology, meteorology, physics, and philosophy also count as major interests.
Naturally I have some non-academic interests as well. When I get the chance to get out of town (not as often as I like due to the lack of car) I like to go hiking and skiing in the mountains. When that's not possible, I'm also interested in (shamelessly) video games, reading, writing, and going for ridiculously long walks and other random journeys to arbitrary destinations. I love cold weather, though regrettably I now live along the eternally tepid California coastline after four years in snowbound Ithaca.
I have some other random peculiar interests. I spend a lot of time arguing about random stuff online (I spent a particularly large amount of time debating with creationists), although much less now than I used to. I also do a certain amount of creative writing, though normally only when sparked by some sort of external event (such as an assignment or a competition); typically focusing on non-human characters.
