I’m a generalist.

That seems to mean that I find a wide range of things interesting. I explore interesting things to some depth but never so deep that I would claim to be a specialist expert in that area.

Some of those interests: running, hiking, backpacking, micro-adventuring, body weight training, timed feeding (intermittent fasting), paleo/low-carb, scratch cooking and baking, making sushi, fermenting, gardening, sewing, self-sufficiency, minimalism, meditation, breathing, and on and on…

I’m a father and a husband to my two best friends. We do family rituals. Morning joyitude and evening gratitude.

Professionally I’m an education researcher. I’m a generalist here as well. Over the years I’ve conducted research on charter schools, school choice, early literacy, summer learning loss, transportation, absenteeism, chronic absenteeism, …

What is now occupying my interest is how to develop robust infrastructure that is able to support rigorous and innovative educational research in the service of educational continuous improvement. Core to this work is doing it in deep collaborative partnership with educators who are doing improvement. Its a lot of fun.

A partial timeline.

1993: I escaped Hendersonville to the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

1998: Graduated from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville; History with a minor in Geography. Somehow Phi Beta Kappa.

1998: First trip to Japan. It got into my system. A year long teaching internship at Farragut High School in Knox County, TN.

1999: I escaped Tennessee and moved to Tsuru-shi, Yamanashi Prefecture in Japan as a part of the Japanese Exchange and Teaching (JET) Program. Transformative. First trip to Southeast Asia. A two weeks in Thailand. Discovered an incredible new way of being. Learned to snowboard.

2000: Six weeks backpacking through Thailand - Vietnam - Cambodia - Thailand. Sometimes with friends old and new, sometimes alone. Learned that we are always capable of much more than we think.

2001: Traveled alone in Burma for a month. It changed me deeply. I grew up a bit as a result. I also got malaria.

2002: Committed to Yuka. Married on a winter bluebird day, fresh snow at Fujisengen Jinja. Moved back to the US and started teaching middle and high school social studies. Reverse culture-shock is real; you never really return.

2003: I completed a master's degree in Secondary Education with a concentration on Social Science Teaching at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

2005: Started working on a PhD in Leadership and Policy Studies at Vanderbilt University. I was a fellow in the Institute of Education Sciences funded Experimental Education Research Training (ExpERT) program.

2009: Received my doctorate. Became an assistant professor at Johns Hopkins University, School of Education.

2012: Emits Neon was born and changed my life in an instant.

2023: Moved on from academia.

Now: