In addition to music and the outdoors, books were also important to our family.
My parents loved to read to us aloud, and my mother has headed the local
Friends of the Library booksale every year for many years.
Consequently, a love of reading was instilled in me practically from birth. I remember, in particular,
one series of books by Gordon Korman that we read aloud together during one vacation -
as we laughed out loud at funny passages, we got some very strange looks! Today I enjoy variety of genres, including children's books,
science fiction/fantasy, Christian apologetics, adventure/suspense, great literature, and plays.
A love of running was ingrained in me by my father. An avid (dare we say fanatical?) runner, we went with him
to many short races every year growing up, and when I was not allowed to miss school to accompany him to the
Boston Marathon (which he ran), I was devastated. I guess it was hardly surprising
that I started running with the Suffield High girls' cross-country team when I was in the eighth grade. I ran faithfully through
high school, stopped almost completely in college, and took it up again afterwards, eventually running the
Atlanta Half Marathon on Thanksgiving day two years in a row (1997 & 1998).
My jobs, for the most part, have reflected these interests. I first worked as a page for
Kent Memorial Library, and later worked as a
summer couselor for the preschool program run by Suffield Parks and Recreation. A
brief stint as a secretary convinced me that I was not well-suited to that particular profession, although I have occasionally
temped as a secretary when between jobs. I went off to college at The University of Rochester
in New York state knowing that I wanted to work outdoors, and ultimately spending two of my college summers working for the same
nature center I'd grown up loving, Roaring Brook.
College was a new and wonderful experience for me. I was involved in music groups from day one, and spent my
sophomore year living on the Music Interest Floor (MIF), where I made a number of close
friends. While singing and playing flute with groups both on the Eastman and River Campus, I majored in
Geology
and Biology. I focused
my studies on paleontology, and did a senior thesis under the wonderful guidance of
Dr. Carlton Brett on lenticular bryozoan colonies that settled on hyaliths.
My field school program requirement was met by a chilly June spent mucking
about in the rocky intertidal off the coast of Maine at Shoals
Marine Laboratory. After college, I worked as a seasonal Park Ranger in Apostle
Islands National Lakeshore, leading tours through the Raspberry
Island Lighthouse. I then moved on to Death Valley National Park,
Badlands National Park, Everglades National Park,
and Acadia National Park, where I got to muck about in the rocky intertidal of Maine again.
Warm winds blew me down to Georgia, where I enrolled in the Master's program at the
University of Georgia Geology Department. My primary research interests include invertebrate
paleontology and symbioses; as a proxy for fossil forms, I studied modern
foraminifera encrusting
shells from
Lee Stocking Island, Bahamas for my thesis work here. My major professor,
Dr. Sally Walker, was the reason I came to study in Georgia.
Sally's wonderful guidance and fascinating work on taphonomy and modern and fossil hermit crabs were a blessing to me. She remains a
true and close friend.
Dr.
Steven Holland, whose classes and guidance in sequence stratigraphy and geostatistics were invaluable, and
Dr.
Susan Goldstein, whose expertise on foraminifera was similarly invaluable, were also on my committee.
In order to identify the species I was studying, I had the wonderful opportunity to
use the University's Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM), with the guidance of Drs. Mark Farmer and
John Shields. They were terrific people to work with. I was doubly blessed to go down twice
in a small submarine to retrieve samples from the deep-water sites off Lee Stocking Island (to 900 feet!). I am enormously grateful
to the researchers involved with the SSETI
project (Shelf/Slope Experimental Taphonomic Initiative),
Dr.s Sally Walker, Carlton Brett, Eric Powell,
Karla Parsons-Hubbard,
Anne Raymond,
Russell Callender, and
George Staff
for introducing me to Lee Stocking Island and letting me use their samples for my research.
While I was a graduate student, I enjoyed a continuing association with National Parks ~
I spent two summers as a teaching assistant for the Geology Department's Geology and
Anthropology Summer Field Program, in which students study the geology of National Parks around the country on a nine-week camping trip.
Here are some pictures from the trips I've been on. I also had the neat experience of attending the
national Sigma gamma epsilon meeting, along with my good friend Aleta.
After finishing my M.S. degree, I enjoyed teaching a semester of historical geology as an adjunct professor at Georgia
Perimeter College.
Perhaps most important in my Georgia experiences have been meeting, becoming friends with, and then marrying
the love of my life, Jason. We originally met through the Unitarian Universalist Young Adult Network,
and now are blessed by our associations with the wonderful folks at University Church in
downtown Athens. God has been good to us, and we welcomed a wonderful little girl into our lives in 2006.
These days, my husband and I enjoy spending family time running in places like the lovely Botanical
Gardens, romping with our dogs and kitties, and enjoying music, computer programming, and hiking together.
I grew up in the small town of
