I was born and raised in Chico, California, a midsized town of around 100,000 people. The city is best known for Chico State, Bidwell Park, and Sierra Nevada Brewing and is about 3 hours north of San Francisco.
I am a 90's kid and a millennial who grew up on VCR, casette tapes and the like. Both my parents were teachers and so education has always been a big part of my life. As a kid I swam with the Chico Aqua Jets and played traveling soccer with various teams. I also played piano and cello and spent many summers at music camps. I attended Chico High School (go Panthers) where, in addition to my academics and swimming, I enjoyed playing for the Science Bowl team.
My higher education was done at Pomona College (part of the Claremont Colleges consortium in Los Angeles) where I majored in physics and Georgetown Universtiy where I earned a PhD in the same. At Georgetown, my dissertation examined the microstructural origins of shear thickening using molecular dynamics simulations. Shear thickening is a fascinating phenomenon where a fluid's resistance to flow can increase dramatically when stirred. This can allow one to run over swimming pools filled with ooblek but can also created challenges and equipment failure in chemical factories. My work examined the role of contact networks of particles in these fluids, which can percolate and allow for the build up of large stresses.
During my time at Pomona and Georgetown, I accululated over 10 years teaching physics in college classrooms. Because of these great experiences I decided to pursue a career in education, and now work at the National Cathedral School in DC as a high school physics teacher. NCS continues to be an incredible educational environment and I enjoy working with many fantastic colleagues and students.