I've been working in sPHENIX for 2 years as a postdoc at Iowa State University!

What is the focus of your work on the sPHENIX experiment?

Where were you born and what is your educational background before your current position?

I'm from Kanas City! I was born on the Kansas side, and grew up on the Missouri side. I went to the Missouri University of Science & Technology for my undergraduate education, and Texas A&M for graduate school.

What is the title of your Ph.D. or tentative title? Awards or biggest talk highlight?

My PhD was "Reconstruction of neutral-triggered recoil jets in \sqrt{s} = 200 GeV p+p collisions at the STAR experiment." I was able to give a talk at Quark Matter 2022 on it and the I_{AA} measurements it served as a baseline for!

How did you decide to go into heavy ion or spin research?

I actually first got interested in QCD from a book by Frank Wilczek, the Lightness of Being. Something that struck me then and has since continued to is how remarkably complex phenomena – like the QGP, or even just the spectrum of hadrons – emerge from the relative simplicity of the underlying partons!

What do you like to do in your spare time?

Lately, since the DLC was released recently, I've been playing a lot of Elden Ring. But beyond that, I'm an avid reader (I finished Dune for the first time recently), and I like to exercise (including running and yoga)!

Fun fact?

Since DCI World Championships were this past weekend: I marched mellophone for Phantom Regiment in 2013!