I'm lucky enough to live just a mile off the Blue Ridge Parkway in the Southern Appalachians, one of the biologically most diverse temperate areas on earth. As a hobby photographer, I love to go on photo expeditions to document primarily the flora of the region and contribute images through the EOL group on Flickr.

Professionally, I'm teaching Botany, Genetics, and Bioinformatics in the Biology Department at Appalachian State University. My research lab focuses on characterizing the function of a group of chloroplast proteins in the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana.