A little bit about me

I was born in Germany (as a US citizen) and lived  in Mainz, Germany, West Hartford, Connecticut, Baumholder, Germany, and Heerlen, the Netherlands all by the age of 18. My mom worked as a civilian for the US Army so I spent most of my K-12 overseas in DODS (Department of Defense Schools). My dad is a professor of Earth Science at Columbia University, so I would spend my school breaks hanging out in NY with him and that side of my family.

After I graduated from high school I joined AmeriCorps working for the Nevada Conservation Corps for a year. We mostly did habitat preservation and restoration work around southern Nevada, plus trail building in Tahoe and Great Basin National Park.

After I graduated from Columbia University with my B.A. I took a gap year before starting my PhD and thru-hiked the Appalachian Trail for over 2000 miles from Maine to Georgia.

Both the AmeriCorps experience and thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail was with my partner, Sol Cooperdock. We also spent many summers on trail crews that built and maintained hiking trails in Vermont with the Green Mountain Club.

Now we enjoy shorter hikes, beach time, and have become playground connoisseurs with our two kids, Razia and Jaden.