My Life's Story

Early Life

I was born in Bowling Green, Ohio in the late fall of 1991. With my extended family still living there, I will always feel a bit like home when I go back. After the age of two, my family relocated to Hamilton New Jersey where I grew up for the rest of my childhood.
In my youth I participated in playing soccer and practicing Teakwondo. In high school the love for Teakwondo manifested into four years of wrestling, and whatever experiences I could get in other forms of MMA (mixed martial arts). I also participated in the school's marching band. This activity on its own was never one that I was enthusiastic for, but the friendships that were made had a lasting affect on my life.

Introduction to Science

At some point in middle school I watched an episode of the cartoon Dextor's Laboratory, which spiked my interest in science. When I took chemistry in high school I was one of few that enjoyed the course and the teacher. From my perspective I couldn't understand why anyone wouldn't like a course where the teacher enjoys designing/causing explosions and burning different atomized elements. Afterwards he always made a point to explain how these reactions occurred and how to replicate them. After such a course, I believed I wanted to be a chemist. My first physics course was taught by a man that wasn't experiencing his best years and as a result not much material was covered. The next year, in an attempt to stay away from the rumored to be sexist female AP chemistry teacher, I decided to take AP physics with the newly hired professor, and I loved it enough to declair it my major in college.

Start College

My first year of college at Stony Brook University was as eventful and challenging as expected. I found new friends in an new state and enjoyed living on my own to it's fullest extent. I spent a lot of time on campus with my friends riding longboards and just exploring the different things such a big campus had to offer.
Not being used to the college way of learning and studying, I practiced physics problems over and over and over again until I got top marks in the class. In an attempt to start my mathematic career with a strong foundation, I enrolled in two proof based calculus courses. Even though I had already taken calculus I and II in highschool, these two courses prooved to be very challenging because of the necessity to understand how to write/design proofs and derivations. This skill became evidently useful when honors calculus III and IV were comparatively easy.
Taking PHY 277 (Computation for Physics and Austronomy) initiated my interest in programming with the languages Fortran and C++. Trying to pursue my new interest in the field, I spent some time trying to understand Alan Calder's (the professor of PHY 277) research for simulations of type Ia Supernova. The next semester I took a class on how to use Maple to solve real world math problems. In my down time I sometimes like to work on a mod for a video game (Minecraft), or more recently the cherenkov project posted in my Programs section.

Focussing on LASER Physics

After introductory chemistry, I quickly learned that part of every chemistry course is a couple lessons on organic chemistry. Realizing that I would rather focus my attention on fundamental physics problems, than learn about bio-related problems, I decided that would be the end of my chemistry.
My interest with LASERs started with Professor Metcalf's course (PHY 300: Waves and Optics). The course wasn't designed around LASERs, but it seemed that all the information we learned came together for the purpose of understanding how they work. My work in his lab and my work with Professor Rijssenbeek can be found in the Research Journal section.
Hal (Dr.Metcalf) told me that the most important thing to consider when choosing a graduate school is geography. He was always one to encourage some form of regular appreciation for the area around you (day at the beach, or trip into NYC). I picked my schools based on ranking, atomic physics, and narrowed them down significantly based on the type of town/state I would want to live in.

Start Graduate School

I wound up at the University of Connecticut; where I am just a short run away from a fifty foot cliff and mansfield hollow state park with a beautiful lake. I wanted to get started work as soon as possible to find out who was in the department, and what my options were in terms of who I could work with. I worked with Dr.Stwalley for the first Summer (2014). The research primarily focused on studying the interactions of two highly excited atomic states. When in close proximity these Rydberg states interact to form a loosely connected molecule; much like ionic or covalent bonds hold molecules together. At the same time I was talking to other professors in the department to find out what they were up to.
Towards the end of 2014 I decided that I wanted to work with Dr.Berrah's group and work on the interaction of ultrafast LASER pulses and complex molecules. A complex molecule to a physicist could be anywhere from a small carbon chain or methane derivative to something like thymine. The group was just starting at UCONN with Dr.Berrah herself having moved from Michigan in 2014.
2015 started off with me giving a presentation on a paper that I had to read. I had always had some trouble picking up a paper with technical details and terminology that I had not yet learned, but being in Dr.Berrah's group got me used to the idea of picking up and paper and breaking it down one step at a time. When the summer came around us graduate students finally had time to start putting together the lab in the physics building, and going out to LBNL (Lawrence Berkeley National Lab) and LCLS (Stanford's National Lab).
At UCONN there is now a set up for taking coincidence measurements of ions and electrons emitted from the extreme irradiation of molecules, and a 2-D spectroscopy setup. LBNL has a synchrotron source of light that is used for a type of spectroscopy where we look for the rate of ionization of certain atoms or small molecules (C-chains) based on distance from the atom to the light and the wavelength of the light. This relationship, among other physically significant characteristics is called the absolute cross section. The work at LCLS was also looking for cross sections of the thymine molecule using an old linear particle accelerator as a source of intense light pulses.
(last edit: Summer 2015)

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