Originally from the Atlanta Metropolitan area, as an undergraduate, I studied Mathematics Education at The University of Georgia.  After graduating with my Bachelors degree, I joined the Teach For America corps and taught high school mathematics in Houston, TX. Then subsequently taught middle school mathematics in Atlanta, GA. Eventually though, I realized while I love the mathematical sciences, teaching was not my passion. So I returned to graduate school.

Now I'm a computer scientist and an artificial intelligence researcher.  And I love it.

What else can I say about myself?  

Well. During my PhD, I spent a lot of time thinking about how to get robotic agents to learn about their environment from human agents (e.g. bottom-right collage image), by making informative queries. Now, I think much more about how to enable artificial simulated agents to learn to effectively communicate with one other. Admittedly, I greatly prefer working in a more abstract problem space.

Outside of my research pursuits... I love spending time with my cat Isaac (Newton).  I am fascinated with all creative and artistic things that transform emotion or evoke contemplation. I like journaling and going to coffee shops.  I am interested in philosophical ideas and taken with demystifying and understanding human nature.  I feel a connection to animals. And. I love nature, mountains, fiction, rain, and traveling / learning about new cultures.