Bio

I was born in Las Vegas and lived in Nederland, Colorado before my family settled in Raritan, New Jersey, where I spent the next twenty years. Math held no interest for me then. I preferred MMOs and old movies to schoolwork, my grades were poor from grade school through high school, and I came close to dropping out more than once. I landed in an AP calculus course my senior year with no plan for college, and my teacher, Doc Kane, saw that I was capable of more. I try to teach the way he taught me.

After that year I enrolled at Raritan Valley Community College as a first-generation college student. Two years later I could have transferred to Rutgers or NJIT with my friends, but my mom's cancer pulled her and my dad West to be with her family. Conveniently at the same time, I had heard about a liberal arts college in Portland called Reed. I had no idea what I was getting into, but with a rec letter from Doc Kane, I knew I had to go there instead. At Reed I learned to read mathematics as a humane and communal subject, closer to storytelling or music than to calculation. As such, I emphasize the careful writing of mathematics in my teaching.

My family is still in Bend, Oregon, and I get back when I can. Outside of teaching and research, you can find me: