Biography
Born in South Florida, I developed a fondness for the natural world at a fairly early age. I spent much of my time as a child running around outside shirtless and shoeless collecting any manner of creatures that could come across. Everything from fish to frogs got delivered to our backyard pond from the local canal systems, including more than my fair share of snakes. Only some of which were venomous. Thanks to the wonderful publication Zoo Books I was absolutely obsessed with sharks and crocodiles. My weekends were often spent fishing in the Chocoloskee Islands or chasing wildlife through the Everglades.
After a childhood stint in Florida my parents moved back to their home area of Midwestern Illinois. I again spent my time here outdoors as much as possible hunting and fishing and enjoying the quite more docile wildlife of the Midwest. After a couple of sidelining injuries that kept me off my feet for awhile I spent part of my teen years learning about technology and computers. I spent time learning a myriad of computer skills from UNIX and C Programming to Windows security and web page development. I grew to love technology and originally enrolled in college as a double major in Computer Science and of course Biology.
I attended school while working full-time in the computer field as a Linux systems administrator and came to the realization that working in the computer field professionally simply wasn’t for me. I hated the 9-5 world of fluorescent lighting. I dropped my computer science major and went back to school full-time focusing on Biology. In the meantime I worked part-time as a web site programmer and developer.
I got my first taste of research at this point with Dr. Matthew Bonnan, doing a project on Functional Morphology in Pythons and Boas. It was an eye opening experience, and a lot of work it was well worth the tedious hours spent in the collections at the Field Museum in Chicago. It was during this time I dared to do a study abroad program in Tasmania, Australia. I spent a fair amount of time overseas and participated in various field work projects from catching and removing potentially dangerous snakes from urban areas to tagging crocodiles, chasing kangaroos and being chased by angry wombats (don’t ask). I travelled extensively through the Australian region and Fiji. It was during this time my love for travel exploded, as I met some of the most amazing (and craziest) people I have ever had the honor of knowing. I finally returned when I ran out of money and eventually managed to finish my undergraduate degree.
After extensive consideration as what to do a Master’s degree in Biology or Geology / Paleontology I chose the path of Biology. I enrolled again at WIU and started a new job being a production manager at the Western Courier. After a short time at the paper I accepted a teaching assistantship position in Biology and worked the next couple of years teaching Human Anatomy and Physiology labs and the occasional lab or lecture in other topics. During this time I was developing my Master’s thesis with Dr. Mike Romano, which after a couple of different project attempts settled on a population genetics study looking at gene-flow in fresh water river turtles. After a couple of years of trapping and working on this and a few other side projects occasionally, my work was down to just analyzing data and writing my thesis. Never one to wait around, while I finished up this last phase of my time at WIU I applied and got accepted to UNO for the Ph.D. program. That is where I am today. Living in New Orleans and working at UNO as a research assistant while working on my dissertation.