I was born in 1983 in a tiny town called Martin (pop. 10,515 in 2000).
The two most important facts to know about Martin are that it has a
branch of the University of Tennessee and that we have something called
the "Soybean Festival".  I lived in Martin till I graduated high school.

I then attended the University of Tennessee at Knoxville on the opposite
side of the state (Go VOLS!!) .  I knew I wanted a chemistry degree, and
that I didn't want to do organic chemistry because it smelled awful.  I
got my BS in Chemistry after 4 years and moved to Champaign-Urbana,
where I'd been accepted into the organic chemistry department.

I joined the Mary Gin group where I worked on synthesizing ion channels
using natural and unnatural amino acids.  I switched groups to the Moore
group in late 2005 and am currently working on projects involving
stress-sensing mechanophores