ABOUT ME

A graduate of Swarthmore College, I recently completed a master's degree in nonfiction from Johns Hopkins University. By day I work at the Center for Applied Linguistics on the ONPAR project.

READING 

• In 2002 I started keeping track of all the books I read.
  

WRITING

• James Yorke Comes at Chaos from Many Angles appeared online on November 28, 2011.
• Gathering for Gardner Honors Writer's Memory with Engagement in Logic Puzzles appeared online on November 3, 2011. The same piece appeared in the December 2011/January 2012 issue of MAA FOCUS under the title of Gathering for Logic Puzzles. 
  
• Ezra Brown Offers a Whirlwind Tour of the Startling Unity of Discrete Mathematics appeared online on October 12, 2011. The same piece appeared in the December 2011/January 2012 issue of MAA FOCUS under the title of The Startling Unity of Discrete Mathematics.
• "Math Therapy" appeared in the September 2011 issue of Math Horizons.
• Michael Starbird on Transforming Lives through Inquiry-Based Learning, my coverage of a talk given at the Fourteenth Annual Legacy of R.L. Moore Conference, appeared online on June 14, 2011.
• Bart de Smit Outlines the Solution to an Escher Mystery went online on April 11, 2011. The same piece appeared in the June/July issue of MAA FOCUS under the title Conformal Transformation Fills in Escher Mystery (see p.13).
• "The Edge of My Seat" appeared in the February 2011 issue of Math Horizons.
• "Call It As It Is" appeared in the December 2010 issue of The Vocabula Review.
• "It Takes Two," about my attempt to learn Argentine tango, appeared in the December 2010 issue of Washingtonian.
• In October 2010, Robert Bryant Introduces Holonomy at MAA Distinguished Lecture appeared online. The same piece appeared in the December 2010/January 2011 issue of MAA FOCUS under the title Hello, Holonomy: MAA Distinguished Lecture Introduces Concept from Differential Geometry (see p.6).
• I wrote James Stewart Presents "Mathematics and Music" at MAA Distinguished Lecture for the Mathematical Association of America. Another version of the same story appeared in the June/July issue of MAA FOCUS (see page 19).
  
• "Channeling Galois" appeared in the April 2010 issue of Math Horizons.
• "The Apostate Daughter" appeared in the March/April 2010 issue of The Humanist.
• "A Delta for Your Epsilon: Finding Your Match Mathematically" appeared in the September 2009 issue of Math Horizons.
• "Rational Romance: Mathematicians on the Search for a Soulmate" appeared in the August 2009 issue of Geek Monthly.
• "But You Deceived Me! The Necessity of Deception in Investigation of the Paranormal," a product of my Germantown Academy senior project debunking psychics, appeared in the July/August 2008 issue of Skeptical Inquirer. A letter to the editor about my story--and my response to it--appears in the November/December 2008 issue of the magazine.
• An account of August 2007's assault on Wheeler Peak appeared in the January/February 2008 issue of Walk About Magazine. 
• "Give Math a Chance," my take on the difference between high school and college mathematics, is the "One Step Ahead: Life After High School" column in the January/February 2008 issue of Imagine.
• I've developed a habit of writing pro-veg letters to the editor, and have been gratified to see a few of them in print:
• My plea for Thanksgiving reflection made the Seattle Times Online-only letters section on November 26, 2007. 
•  A letter I wrote to the Sports Editor appeared in the New York Times (!) under the heading of Brats Fielder Can Have on May 4, 2008. (Of course it is only a measly two sentences long.)
• Praise for Veganism: More to Love appeared in the Hartford Advocate on June 26, 2008.
• "Vegan Spread" was printed in the Portland Mercury Letters to the Editor on July 3, 2008. (Unfortunately the link went dead long ago.)
  
• "There are many animal-free eating options" ran in the Daily Journal on February 13, 2009.
• "Eggs and health" appeared in Greenwich Time on February 23, 2009.
• The poem Geometric Proliferation appeared in the November 2007 issue of Math Horizons.
• I placed three pieces about Welsh start-up Creative Paper Wales:
• "Paper Profits from Sheep Dung" appeared in the July/August 2007 issue of Sheep! magazine.
• "A new meaning for post-consumer" can be found in the August 10, 2007 issue of The Paper Stock Report. (I would provide a link to a PDF, but I'm afraid that might violate some copyright or something...)
•  "Earthy Sentiments" headed up the Sacred and Mundane department in the January/February 2008 issue of Orion.
  
• I so far have four spoof news stories to my name: [Great-great-grand]mother Knows Best, Media Harping Breeds New Species of Single-Issue Voter,  Images of Octomom Combat Population Explosion and Feminist Angered by Fugitives List.  
  
• Sonority Contour Preferences in Philippine Languages was presented by my co-author Rachel Shorey at the Tenth International Conference on Austronesian Linguistics. The version that served as my linguistics thesis is available here.
  
• I wrote two letters to the editor of the Swarthmore Phoenix: Fight enforced extranormativity and Eternal sunshine of the apathetic mind. 
• A revision of Catullus the Basketcase, originally written for Introduction to Roman Poetry at Swarthmore, appeared in the college's Alchemy journal.