Being a member of the US Air Force gave me the discipline to focus and succeed in college.  After separating from the USAF, I worked on electrical engineering and mathematics at a junior college, making the Dean’s list every semester in attendance.

I received a Bachelor of Science with honors in Physics with a minor in Mathematics from San Francisco State University, where I was lucky to have met my friends and mentors Drs. Susan Lea and John Burke.  In addition to physics, Sue and John were role models in every sense of the word: they taught me professionalism, being excellent in all my endeavors, and importantly, how to think about thinking.

At University of California at Davis, I completed a Ph.D. in Physics with Dr. Steven Carlip, where I studied and researched classical and quantum gravity.  My dissertation was entitled Investigation of the Time Dependent Newton-Schrödinger Equation.  At UCD, I also taught lab classes and held recitations for both College Physics and University Physics.  I also worked as a motorcycle mechanic.

After graduation, I taught University Physics and Calculus at Mercer County Community College in New Jersey for a few of years, before being recruited for a high-paying position working as a “quant” on Wall Street, where I still am today.