Hello!

When I was a kid, I fell in love with science. Something about cognitive exploration excited my little heart like nothing else - it felt as if I could reach beyond my limits simply through wonder, and I found that delightlfully inspiring. My parents caught on quickly, so my childhood was filled with telescopes, magnets, dissection kits, and DIY chemistry experiments.
 
In sixth grade, I received a marvelous assignment from my homeroom teacher: the model volcano. Classic, right? While everyone else used some variation of baking soda and vinegar, my dad helped me load my volcano with a homemade potassium nitrate firework. My teacher brought us outside for the demo and the episode ended with an empty fire extinguisher in the school parking lot. I was thrilled.
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Fast forward to university. I had developed a deep interest in the most complex item in the known universe: the human brain. That little three pound mesh of tissue holds the key to everything anyone has ever thought about. Ever. Who wouldn't want to study that?
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I started at the University of Alabama at Birmingham in 2016 and worked in research labs throughout the entire course of my neuroscience degree.
 
I began in molecular biology and bioinformatics, where I worked with a team of hand-picked researchers to discover a novel virus and annotate its entire genome. ​
 
Next, I moved into epigenetics to explore the expression of certain methylated histones in response to stress factors in the zebrafish brain.
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Then, I moved into eye-tracking analysis in a language and cognitive dynamics laboratory that focused on aphasic neural lesions.
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Lastly, I finished my degree as a neuroimaging data analyst, working primarily with fMRI data in a study of memory and attention networks.
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After college, I decided to pursue some other passions before settling into something long term. So, I went on to serve as a missionary at a university campus for three years. That was an incredible experience, and I wouldn't trade it for the world. 
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In my transition back to "normal" life, I took a project manager/events coordinator role with the same missions organization to get my 9 to 5 wits back after my season in the mission field. ​
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During that time, I also served a term as the Director of Public Relations on the Board of Directors for a small local nonprofit startup. Lots of marketing strategy. Lots of communications data. It was a worthwhile endeavor and I'm still relatively involved with the ever-growing effort. 
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So what comes next?
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I always enjoyed the programming and building technical solutions in my undergraduate research, so I enrolled in a Data Science fellowship to beef up my programming skills and aptitude for machine learning back in December 2023. After several classes, projects, presentations, and reports, I had become a skilled programmer with a knack for producing quality predictive models, data pipelines, and creative solutions.​
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Now, I work as a data engineer on the cybersecurity team of a major organization. Essentially, I build SIEM pipelines to enable our security team to detect and respond to threats quickly and efficiently. I love what I do, and I wouldn't trade it for the world.
 
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In case you're wondering, I do exist beyond my professional and academic interests (as most do).
 
Most importantly, I have a lovely wife and newborn son, and I'll do anything for those two people. 
 
​When it comes to fun, I read fiction, I play piano, and I stay active through weightlifting and F3 workouts. I'm an aspiring carpenter who can build all sorts of things that resemble rectangular prisms, and one time I fixed the A/C in our house by myself - that felt pretty good. 
 
Lastly, I love poetry and coffee - if you reach out regarding either of those things, I will respond.
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I hope have you a wonderful rest of your day.