Born in Houston, TX, but mainly raised in the salubrious heat of Tucson, AZ, I completed my undergraduate degree at the University of Arizona, majoring in Chemistry and Classics (having never perused the course catalog beyond the letter "C"). While there I competed on the school's wrestling team, and then later fell in with the triathlon set and competed in several Olympic-distance races in southern Arizona.

 

Upon graduation, I spent several months volunteering in Trujillo, Peru with the BrucePeru organization. There I taught basic math and reading skills to kindergarteners and first graders in one of the poorest neighborhoods of the city, Alto Trujillo. I also worked as a translator in a free dental clinic, where British dental students performed pro bono cleanings and extractions.

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Shortly therafter I enrolled at the University of Arizona College of Public Health, where I met my future wife Katharine. I pursued a practical course of study in health systems and policy, titled appropriately enough the Public Health Practice track. In the midst of my first year I was accepted into medical school, and so spent the remainder of that year diligently working to complete as much coursework as possible, including my internship in Landstuhl, Germany, where I worked with the US Army Public Health Command: Region-Europe. 

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Medical school took me to Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. During my first two years there, in addition to the already-rigorous medical school curriculum, I worked to complete my MPH via a combination of online and transfer credits. My clinical rotations took me to the palatial lobbies of the Cleveland Clinic, the endearingly haphazard MetroHealth county hospital, and the therapeutic placidity of the VA's inpatient psychiatric unit. My fourth year brought the opportunity for extensive away rotations, including medicine at the VA in Denver, Colorado, hand surgery at the University of Arizona, and emergency medicine at Kaiser in San Diego.

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Since graduating I have been completing my internship in medicine at the University of California Davis in Sacramento. While in Sacramento I have worked towards obtaining full medical licensure and experiencing as never before the challenges of modern health care.

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Chief among my accomplishments during this past year has been marrying the aforementioned Katharine, the love of my life. Given our disparities in income at the time of my proposal (mine negative, hers positive), along with her particular and somewhat capricious tastes, it was always understood that she would take the driver's seat in selecting her own engagement ring—which would, after all, ultimately find itself on her finger. So by way of proposal, I instead created a scrapbook, including a drawing of a ring in which she had previously expressed some pointed interest. My efforts met with the greatest success, and we married in March of 2017.

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In my spare time I enjoy undertaking various small projects which most properly fall under the larger heading of "tinkering," and have resulted in an unexpected expertise in tomato growing, bicycle repair, and furniture construction. I enjoy reading, recently delving most into longform journalism, which suits my limited spare time—although with greater leisure I have been known to enjoy literature both classic and contemporary, with a notable recent favorite being the magical realism of Isabel Allende in The House of the Spirits. I stay active at the gym and running our dogs, Moose and Maggie, who we rescued from a shelter and have proceeded to spoil shamelessly.