The way a set of individual parts fit together just so to form something new captures my fascination. In college I studied Cognitive and Brain Science, because there is no system more compelling and interesting than a tangle of billions of simple electrochemical relays that give rise to human consciousness. The CBS major at Tufts has substantial computer science requirements, and my love of brain systems translated easily to scripting, data structures and design patterns.

While I was working as a research assistant at the Center for Reading and Lanugage Research I quickly discovered that I enjoyed developing the technologies that allowed us to to conduct our studies more than I appreciated the data collection and paper writing of standard academia. In 2015, as I was graduating, the project I was working on spun off into a non-profit: Curious Learning. I jumped on as their first employee and dove headlong into learning everything I needed to build our websites, maintain our databases, and develop our content. I've been fortunate in the intervening years to work with mentors across disciplines, each one helping me leap forward in mastering a particular discipline.

Now I am motivated by our mission - bringing literacy education to all children - but I have developed a passion for making sure everything I create is robust, well documented, performant and easily extensible. In essence, a strong component of a stronger system.