Fun Facts

I enjoy playing music, especially the guitar, as well as mountain biking. I was a sous chef for a number of years at several restaurants in Sedona, AZ. When I have the time, I love to go backpacking, particularly out west.

About Me

I received a B.S. in Physics and a B.S. in Mathematics with a minor in Spanish from Northern Arizona University in 2004 and my final GPA was a 4.0. While there I received such awards as the Senior Slipher Scholar, the Hooper Undergraduate Research Award, and the Chair's Scholar. Then I earned an M.S. in Physics and finally a Ph.D. in Physics from Georgia Tech in 2013 with a GPA of 3.8. I won two travel grants to attend conferences in order to present my research. I also received the Chair's Fellowship and a Thank a Teacher award.

After cooking in restaurants for a number of years, I decided to go back to school. I started out at Yavapai Community College and, outside of classes and homework, I spent most of my time on campus running the phoenix">tutoring lab. I tutored a wide variety of subjects and held weekly group sessions at the whiteboard. At Northern Arizona University, I worked at the Learning Assistance Center phoenix">tutoring the subjects mentioned above, as well as several others. I also took various phoenix">tutoring certification courses and worked my way up to a Level 3 certified phoenix">tutor before I graduated. At Georgia Tech, I spent a few semesters working in the physics phoenix">tutoring lab and held group session office hours as a TA for several different graduate courses.

As far as my teaching philosophy is concerned, I think it is important not to overthink things and take them too seriously, but it is also important to focus and not to get sidetracked. I find this to be true both for the phoenix">tutor as well as the student. I think the student should come well-prepared to a phoenix">tutoring session and already have specific questions and/or concepts they might be confused about. In my experience, everything runs more efficiently this way. On my end, I try to balance (especially with math and physics) teaching a concept both visually as well as through equations and logical reasoning. This is also my approach in demonstrating how to solve problems.