My Dad was in the Air Force for 37 years, which meant we lived in many different places as I grew up. In addition to multiple states in the USA, I lived in Europe (Greece, Spain and Germany) for five years and graduated from Torrejon High School in Spain in January. A few years later, I attended a community college in California and got my first AA in Business Management. I worked in fast food and retail management for five or six years until the company I was working for went bankrupt. I went back to school rather than to take huge cut in pay. That time around, I took classes at Grays Harbor College including oceanography, general biology, general chemistry, and physics, and so ‘discovered’ science! After Grays Harbor College, I transferred to Pacific Lutheran University and took my first geology class, which was Paleontology. After getting my Bachelor's degree with a dual major in biology and geology, I went to Indiana University for grad school, getting a Master's and a PhD in Geobiology (paleontology). Choosing paleo as my major meant not having to decide between my love of biology and geology, which I still cannot do today.

I started teaching at Highline College in Fall 2010, shortly before successfully defending my doctorate research. Since then, I have enjoyed teaching a variety of classes but my favorites are GEO103 - Intro to Paleontology and, now, GEO108 - Geobiology of Dinosaurs. When not teaching, I work as a Instruction & Classroom Support Tech to help other instructors with lab classes and manage the ThunderLab MakerSpace. I always am happy to share my knowledge and skills with science, engineering prototyping, fabrication and 3D printing. Just send me an email or pop in to 16-106 during the MakerSpace open lab hours!