I am an astronomer, by training, who enjoys designing and building the equipment for astronomical observations. I specialize in optical interferometry, adaptive optics, and infrared instrumentation. My motivation for delving into these topics is often questions related to planets around other stars. Studying Earth-like planets around our stellar neighbors is one of the defining challenges of our field. I like thinking how we might one day achieve that.
I was raised in the little town of Shiocton, Wisconsin and went to college at MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts, followed by the University of Arizona in Tucson, Arizona. I spent a long time in the desert southwest, but have recently moved here with my family to Santa Cruz to run the Lab for Adaptive Optics.
Santa Cruz is a great place to enjoy the outdoors which I like to do via hikes and rowing on the bay. I still haven't seen a whale, but I keep looking.