Welcome

About

I grew up in Massachusetts and earned a B.A. in Geology from Vassar College in New York state. In 2006, I moved to Yosemite National Park where I worked for five years as a restoration ecologist for the National Park Service. My work supported various park projects and included surveying river profiles, monitoring groundwater wells, taking streamflow measurements, mapping exotic plant populations, and GIS analysis.

In 2011, I moved to North Carolina to attend graduate school, ironically, to study the Sierra Nevada! Specifically, I used the vertical extent of El Capitan to test hypotheses about how granitic magma move in Earth's crust. My work was supported by National Geographic and resulted in some pretty cool stuff, such as the first geologic map of such a massive cliff! Click here for an article in National Geographic about my research.

I moved back to California in 2013 and immediately began work as a professor—first as a part-time faculty at several community colleges in the central Sierra then for five years as full-time faculty at Moorpark College in southern California. Now I live in Reno, NV and work for Truckee Meadows Community College. There are few things I enjoy more than exploring the world with students!

In my free time, I rock climb, run ultramarathons, go fishing, hit the skate park, and hike. Climbing is my primary sport though. I have climbed El Capitan in Yosemite over 75 times, including seven speed records. I also write climbing guidebooks to the High Sierra and to Yosemite.