About Me

I am from Denver, Colorado and am a huge basketball fan, my favorite player is obviously Nikola Jokic. My sister Julia is a medical student at the University of Colorado, and my mom Angela Dire is a 2nd grade teacher. I am named after my grandfather Henry (Hank) Dire who owned and operated the Bonnie Brae Tavern in Denver, Colorado. The Bonnie Brae was open for 88 years from 1934-2022 and I worked there from 2010-2014. As an undergraduate at the University of Colorado I worked on an honors thesis with Sebastian Casalaina-Martin (Yano). I started graduate school at UIC in 2021 and am lucky enough to have Izzet Coskun as my advisor.