Despite all attempts by my 10th grade math teacher to discourage me from getting a university education, I received a Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Chicago in August of 2008. Take that, Mr. Carr!

I conducted my Ph.D. research under the tutelage of the illustrious Sean Crosson (Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology) trying to unlock the mysteries of life on the scale of single Caulobacter crescentus cells. Below, a picture of Sean riding a Caulobacter (note: Caulobacter pictured is not actual size). The title of my thesis: Populations to Single Cells: Insights from Microfluidic Growth Experiments

It turns out that my academic genealogy is full of interesting people, including:

Keith Moffat
Max Perutz (1962 Nobel Prize in Chemistry)
John Desmond Bernal
Sir William Henry Bragg (1915 Nobel Prize in Physics)
Sir Joseph John "J.J." Thomson (1906 Nobel Prize in Physics)
John William Strutt, 3rd Baron Rayleigh (1904 Nobel Prize in Physics)
Edward John Routh
Adam Sedgwick
Roger Cotes
and
Isaac Newton

Now I didn't always work on biological systems. For my first couple of years at Chicago, I worked under the supervision of the preeminent cosmologist John Carlstrom (pictured below), trying to unlock the mysteries of life on the scale of galaxy clusters. More specifically, I worked on the Characterization of MMIC 85-115 GHz HEMT Amplifiers for the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich Array. You may also want to check out the SZA web page.