After graduating from little old Dakota High School, I spent a year living in Ecuador before attending Reed College in Portland, Oregon where I received a BA in Biology and worked with David Dalton for my thesis project on nitrogen fixation. I then moved to Tucson, AZ. for a year and a half, and then braved the cold gloom as I moved to Ithaca, New York, where I now reside while attending Cornell University.

I have an older sister who is working on her Ph.D. in the Department of World Arts and Cultures at UCLA., a brother that is an avid adventure seeker, specializing in skiing, rock climbing and anything else fun and dangerous. My younger sister works at Pioneer Hybrid in Woodland, California specializing in drought tolerance in maize, and my littlest tallest brother Ben a writer, musician and punk star, just began a Bachelor’s journey at the liberal of all liberal arts colleges, St. John’s College in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Ask him how to say something in ancient Greek.