Expect to find my CV posted here shortly. There you can read a rather dry and impresonal account of my life experience and relevant job skills. Here is my resume to hold you over until the CV is ready.
Biography
Early Life
I grew up just outside of the first electrically lighted city in the world, Wabash, Indiana. I graduated first in my class from Southwood High School. My time participating in Science Olympiad greatly reinforced my passion for scientific exploration. During summers in Wabash I participated in HOBY and Hoosier Boy's State conferences to develop leadership and community skills. I also worked a few odd jobs in construction for my father. I worked part time briefly for the Abe Sposeep and Sons scrap yard. It was hot, uncomfortable work. I think it was about that time that I decided I wanted to be a chemist!
Undergraduate
At Manchester College I majored in Chemistry and Religion. I graduated with honors, second in my class, after writing a thesis about the economic prospects for photovoltaic power production in Indiana.
I was lucky to have Dr. James R. Gaier, a senior research scientist at NASA, as an advisor for the first half of my college career. I was fortunate enough to spend a summer working in his laboratory as part of NASA's LERCIP program, where I worked on characterizing the electrical properties of graphite fiber composite materials for use in batteries. It turned out I discovered a collection of ways NOT to use graphite composite materials in batteries, but that didn't do much to diminish the great learning experience.
The next summer I spend working as a Manpower temp at the doomed GDX automotive rubber factory back in Wabash. I worked as an assistant engineer and I spend my time helping quality control with statistical analysis. I also helped make sure their technique for testing flock (the furry fibers on the glass run window seals of some cars) abrasion resistance was up to spec for Volkswagon.
I met my wonderful wife, Laura, during this time and we were married the summer before my first year at Purdue.
Postgraduate
When I came to Purdue to pursue my graduate studies I was very interested in the analyitcal department, especially instrumentation. My summer with Garth Simpson convinced me of the undisputed superiority of nonlinear optics to solve all problems so I joined his group with little hesitation. In no time at all I was working with ultrashort pulse, high bandwidth pulse lasers. Around the same time, Garth enlisted me in a side project, NLOPredict.
Once I started learning Python to help with NLOPredict, I figured out that I love programming and other computer sciences. After learning to use basic ab initio methods to predict nonlinear responses from molecules and after writing the review article with Garth, I discovered a new love of physical chemistry.
In September of 2008, my son Andrew was born. I learned that having kids in Grad school is tough!
Around the end of my second year I started working on a collaboration with one of Purdue's newest faculty members, Dr. Lyudmila Slipchenko. It wasn't long before I decided that I was kind of scared of lasers and accepted Dr. Slipchenko's offer to develop my computational skills in her group.
I am currently functioning as a dual citizen in two research groups. I help Garth maintain NLOPredict and deal with the theoretical facets of predicting nonlinear properties of molecules and crystals. For Lyudmila, I maintain the group computer cluster, Karlsson, and use his formidable might to calculate the intricacies of Ammonia-oxygen exciplex complexes. I'm also working on hacking some Fortran code for GAMESS and, hopefully soon, C++ for QCHEM .
Interests
Believe it or else there are things I enjoy besides work and family, and TV and video games . . .
Fiction
I haven't been able to shake my liberal arts training from Manchester, so I keep trying to write fantasy novels. In case you were wondering where my oft-used handle, Nezmatul, comes from, it comes from one of my fantasy manuscripts I'm planning on throwing at literary agents one of these days. Nezmatul is a dragon who thinks he is very wise and powerful (and also evil), but he's really oblivious and harmless. I guess using him as my persona is a way of keeping myself humble.
Hopefully I'll get around to posting links to some samples and short stories I've written over the years.
Running
I've been running 5K and 10K races since middle school. It's not only my way of staying in shape, it's a spiritual experience. After a good run comes a Zen-like emptiness of mind and body and real sense of peace I don't get anywhere else. I might run a mini-marathon one of these days to try and keep up with my father, who has run several marathons already.
Dungeons and Dragons
I won't comment on this activity in great detail. If you are curious, I have a blog about the subject you might find interesting. I Hate Dungeons