I was born on July 29th, 1974 in Edina, Minnesota. I spent the majority of my childhood shuttling between the 'big' city of Minneapolis and the small town (pop. <400) of Old Frontenac situated at the widest point of the Mississippi River. It was the Mississippi River that got me utterly and completely hooked on the outdoors. As a child it served as a place for swimming, boating, fishing, and exploring. As I grew up, I realized that my interest in the river could be paired with my interest in the way things work. My love of chemistry developed during my college years at Grinnell College in Iowa. Their facilities, faculty, and atmosphere are exceptional. I became interested in aquatic chemistry through projects such as the 'water module' in which my general chemistry laboratory analyzed drinking water samples for impurities. The experience was phenomenal, and I found that I loved working with scientific instruments. My experience as a fledgling aquatic chemist grew as I had opportunities to study for a summer at the U of MN and also at Tulane University. During the same time, I was becoming intellectually stimulated by my courses in physical chemistry. The ability to approach chemical problems from a first principles perspective was tremendously appealing to me and I developed a serious interest in the study of physical chemistry.
My dissertation research with Dr. Kit Bowen at Johns Hopkins was extremely fruitful and further honed my research goals for my own career. Through the work I performed in his lab I became a skilled experimentalist - but also an electrician, plumber, drafter, machinist, and theoretician. My work here at ETH focuses on the photochemistry of pollutants and the interaction between pollutants, natural organic matter, photons, and photochemically generated reactive species. My experience with laser technology from Johns Hopkins has helped me to put together a femtosecond transient absorption spectroscopy experiment. This technique will allow us to monitor the direct photolysis and indirect photolysis of environmentally relevant systems. Furthermore, it will allow me to study the reactivity of the hydrated electron with natural organics and pollutants as well.