Like a lot of students, I chose to study math because it felt like it came naturally to me. I was good at it and, conveniently, the career opportunities are abundant. Of course, mathematics in college and graduate school is painstakingly different than high school. I became well-practiced in failed attempts, patient questioning, and reworking of solutions. My best teachers in college and graduate school guided me past imitative mathematics to curious persistence and intellectual humility in both our questions and our answers. Learning this style of thinking was important because we're all susceptible to missteps, and many times a careful, long approach to our work is shorter than sprinting between ill-considered solutions. The effects of taking this approach have touched every part of my life.
As excited as I am about Math and Statistics, I do have some other hobbies. I very much enjoy traveling with my partner, cooking, listening to music, and playing darts (stop by my office for a match!). For exercise, I enjoy playing squash and chasing after our son, Ollie. I also have and tinker with a 1987 BMW appropriately named Emmy after the German mathematician.
