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I was born in Walla Walla, Washington
and by the time I was five I had lived in Colorado,
Kansas, and finally Oregon where I lived year round until 2000.
For grades K-10 I attended Tualatin Valley Junior Academy in Hillsboro, OR
where I was a member of the track and field and basketball teams (small
forward/point guard), band (clarinet), choir (alto), and the Ring of Fire Handbell Choir.
In 10th grade I went on a mission trip to Guanaja, Honduras where I met the woman who helped
discover the largest, most complete, best preserved T. rex, Sue, and the deer
living in her house.
At Auburn Adventist
Academy in Auburn, Washington, I completed my last two years of
high school. As a junior I was a member of the band, choir, and basketball
team. In the summer of 2006 I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease called Myasthenia Gravis and was not able to
participate in sports or play the clarinet during my final year of high school.
During my senior year I participated in choir and sang in an all girls quartet,
worked as the girls dorm tutor resident assistant, and
took pictures for the yearbook.
In 2002 I made my way to the Midwest where I attended
Andrews University and
majored in Mathematics and minored in Religion and Physics. At Andrews I had
the opportunity to be involved with the math and physics clubs, several honors
societies, and undergraduate research both at Andrews and at the Grand Valley
State University REU in mathematics.
Graduating in 2006 I trekked back across the United States, stopping in Lincoln,
Nebraska to break down, to the southwest where
I am now a graduate student in mathematics at the University
of Arizona in Tucson, Arizona. I enjoy residing there in the heat
with my awesome cat Eta, running audio and playing my
guitar at church, watching
thunderstorms and listening to the rain during monsoon season, riding my road
bike when it is dry, and, of course, studying and teaching mathematics.
In the summer of 2008 I successfully passed the
mathematics qualifying exam. I plan to complete my M.S. in the spring of 2009
in group theory then continue to pursue and complete a Ph.D. by 2011. When I
get my degree I plan on teaching mathematics at the university level. My
research interests include algebra and mathematics education.