I am a father (hi Nate and William!), spouse, aikido teacher, visual artist (mixed-media drawing and shodo), runner (11 marathons to date), auto enthusiast (one broken car in garage) and community ecologist (33 publications). I love backpacking, although I rarely make time for it these days. I like to be busy! I grew up at the University of Kansas and went to school there. Next, I worked at the Cornell Vet School studying clinical genetics, and after that I went to grad school in Montana to study plants. I still love the West and Western plants. Later, I toiled as a postdoctoral researcher in Reno, NV; College Station, TX; Blacksburg, VA; and Raleigh, NC. In 2018 I joined the biology faculty at Earlham and am loving it.

I wear a lot of hats at Earlham: I teach biology, direct the Hill Memorial Greenhouse and Earlham Herbarium, and I also advise the Women’s Rugby Club, teach aikido classes, and advise the Earlham Aikido Club as the Head Instructor of Indiana Ki Aikido, whose dojo is located on campus.