About Me

Welcome to my little corner of the web. I recently finished my M.S. in Applied Mathematics at Western Carolina University, where I also received a B.S. in Computer Science and Applied Mathematics. I just began working on my Ph.D. in mathematics this fall at Clemson University. Academically, I've always been interested in computability theory and computational complexity, since having been exposed to those subjects. I've also recently (ever since Dr. McNelis' Math 622 class at WCU) developed an interest in functional analysis. Cryptography and combinatorics are subjects I also find very fun and interesting, and I spend a fair portion of my free time studying these. I have an interest in topology and number theory as well, though I don't know a great deal about either.

Outside of academics I have various little hobbies including juggling, coding, listening to music, and most recently photography. My tastes in music tend to bounce around, from progressive rock (e.g., Pink Floyd and OSI) to jazz (Miles Davis, Diana Krall) to metal (Opeth, Tool). I'm almost always listening to music, as my last.fm profile indicates.

I'm also a big fan of games, particularly "abstract strategy" games. Lately I've primarily been playing Hive, where hexagonal tiles are placed next to one another and the object of the game is to surround the opponent's queen, and Pentago, which is essentially tic-tac-toe on steroids. (Pentago is played on a six-by-six game board that's split into three-by-three quadrants. After each move, one of the quadrants is rotated 90 degrees, and the object of the game is to get five in a row.)