Westminster College has changed to Westminster University! See my updated contact information.
I grew up in Bettendorf, Iowa (part of the Quad Cities), and went to Cornell College in Mount Vernon, IA. (For the record, we were founded twelve years before the other Cornell.) At Cornell, students take One Course At A Time (OCAAT) for three and a half weeks, with a half-week break between each of the eight (now nine) courses in the year. I really loved the ability to completely dive into one topic at a time with the professor's full attention. In OCAAT, assignments are often due daily, and procrastination might mean half an hour, not days or weeks like on a semester plan. This schedule also afforded me the opportunity join the chamber orchestra's performance tour in Italy, and take an entire course in Greece!
I moved to Boulder, Colorado for graduate school. In my free time, I played steel drums with Rocky Mountain Steel Bands and Urban Island and enjoyed the outdoors. After completing my PhD, I moved to Tucson, Arizona to complete an NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Arizona. There, I continued to play steel drums with the University of Arizona's ensemble and tried to hike when I could (and when it wasn't too hot). In October 2014, my husband, Bryce, and I adopted a rescue dog that we named Sarge. The next year, we welcomed our son Elton into the world.
In the fall of 2016, we moved to Salt Lake City, UT, where I now have a position in the Physics department at Westminster University (formerly Westminster College). At Westminster I have taught many classes and mentored students in a variety of contexts. In 2019, daughter Ada joined our family. Please see the other pages on my website to learn more about my teaching, research, and service activities.