Born and raised in the Golden Isles area, I’ve always had a special place in my heart for Southeast Georgia; the marshy beaches, toasty summers, and southern hospitality were staples of my early life. Staying in Georgia for my college education, I studied mechanical engineering for my undergraduate degree. After working in manufacturing/product engineering for three years I decided to pivot towards a more research-oriented technical career path, which eventually led me to graduate school. I worked in the Nanomaterials Fabrication Research Lab at Notre Dame (with Dr. Svetlana Neretina and Dr. Robert Hughes) for the duration of my PhD creating new processes and fabrication techniques for creating highly-active plasmonic devices for sensing, catalysis, and photovoltaics. I am particularly interested in physical phenomena at the nanoscale, especially with regards to materials for energy/electronics and how processing and fabrication techniques lead to subsequent shape, size, composition, and crystallinity control at the nanoscale.
When I’m not in the lab/classroom you will probably find me tinkering around with my PC, mountain biking, flying FPV drones, walking my dog, or chasing the cloudless night!
Juna, my colorado mountain dog! (120lbs – wow!)