I was born on the 7th of June, 1981 at the Desert Hospital in Palm Springs, California and immediately moved in with my parents. Besides overnights at friends' houses, I lived with them in Folsom, CA until I was 18 years old. This is where some of my closest friends on Earth come from.

I began college at the University of California, Irvine in 1999 and graduated with a BS degree through the Earth Systems Science Department in 2003. In college I met more of my closest friends on Earth.

While in college, I had the opportunity to live and do field work in southwest Costa Rica, studying how to more efficiently grow valuable crops in poor tropical soils with Dr. Lynn Carpenter of UCI. During my experience in Costa Rica I realized that I wanted to continue my education.

After graduating in June 2003, my life co-captain Brian and I put all 50 states in a hat, pulled out Washington, and moved to Seattle for the summer. We worked as hosts at the Olive Garden, we spent all of our money, he met his wife, and I returned to California to join Chris Still and the Geography Department at UCSB in fall 2003.

I earned my Ph.D. in September 2009 and have been happily working as a postdoctoral researcher in the same department even since.