I was raised first in the Salt Lake City, Utah, area and later in Fort Worth, Texas, where I learned to appreciate clouds and winter. I got more and more interested in knowing things, and, when I made it to my last year at the Texas Academy of Math and Science, I decided that I wanted to study physics, the science of everything. I also caught a slight bug for star gazing so I double-majored in physics and astronomy at the University of Texas at Austin. To keep learning, I went to graduate school at the Ohio State University in physics. There I was able to marry my interests in computing and science by getting into electronic structure calculations. When it got time to graduate, I connected with a project at Argonne National Laboratory to study vibrations in materials (phonons) using the supercomputer there. After that project’s funding came to an end, I was able to start another position at Argonne connecting chemical engineers with a highly accurate electronic structure method (quantum Monte Carlo). Since then, I’ve delved full-time into teaching with some research at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside and am enjoying life as an assistant professor there.

Of course, all of the above misses out on the great people who’ve made my life better: my parents, relatives, friends, teachers, professors, supervisors, and colleagues. Good people have enriched and continue to enrich my life, and I look forward to all the future memories I will get to make with those good people I know as well as the wonderful people I might yet meet.