| About Me A Brief Bio I was born in Utah, and lived there for all of my young life. From grade school through high school, I participated in many academic competitions, most notably the National Spelling Bee (I made it to the second day, getting out just before ESPN started taping the final rounds), and as the result of one such competition I started attending Brigham Young University during the last few years of high school. Though I'd loved math for a long time, I decided--for some reason I don't now understand--to major in physics and minor in math. Three years into my major, though, after realizing that I loved my class on the theory of relativity because of the math involved, I decided to change my major to math and my minor to physics. Soon after the switch I took a couple of years off (1999-2001) to serve a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Campinas, Brazil. After returning from my mission, I finished my undergraduate degree, got married, and completed a master's degree in math at BYU. After applying to many schools with good programs in combinatorics and graph theory, we settled on the University of Illinois and moved here in 2004.Education
Other Interests I enjoy traveling and spending time with my wife and our two daughters, a three-year-old and a baby. I also enjoy reading, watching movies and TV, creating scrapbooks, and learning and writing about family history. Current never-ending projects include documenting my mission to Brazil and researching the lives of my ancestors involved in the Revolutionary War and Mormon pioneer movement. |
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