I was born in Columbus, Ohio, and hence branded a Buckeye for life. When I was still new to the world, my family moved to the hot state of South Carolina. After 17 years of living in Spartanburg, the parents went back to Ohio (brrrrrr) and I to the roaring town of Athens, GA where I entered UGA for my BS. I fell in love with ecology and learned that herpetology could be a career and not just a hobby. Being a poor student driven to travel, I took my first Ecology job in the rainforests of Costa Rica. I then left Athens for the swamps of Kentucky to track Nerodia, the street-thugs of snakes. I went straight from these smelly, biting wonders to the West Indies where I studied a pocket population of hawksbill sea turtles on Long Island, off the northeastern coast of Antigua. I now find myself here at SREL, studying snakes and loving life.