me

I was born and raised in a suburb of Boston, MA, and still retain many ties, both familial and emotional, to the East. But after graduating with a B.A. from Middlebury College in 2001, I moved westward and have spent the majority of time since living in or around Salt Lake City, UT, earning my Ph.D. in psychology at the University of Utah in 2009. I presently work as an educator and an independent researcher, writer, and consultant.

My intellectual and research interests are broad. As a cognitive psychologist, my dissertation research and graduate work focused primarily on studying attention, consciousness, and cognitive control, though I have also spent much time examining scientific methodology and the history and philosophy of science, particularly as it pertains to the social sciences. My background in cognition combined with my recreational pursuits has spawned an interest in studying human risk taking behavior, problem solving, and judgment/decision making.

Living in the Salt Lake area has given my the opportunity to explore my passion for the mountains and, to an admittedly lesser extent, the desert. I try to spend time in the wilderness year round, but particularly enjoy recreating in the high places of the world in winter, most often on skis. Such passions have taken me to the highest peaks in North America as well as deep into the “greatest snow on Earth.” A long time adherent of the ‘work hard – play hard’ philosophy, I find such recreational habits not only refreshing relief from the valleys of life, but also a source of gripping opportunity to explore oneself and, more generally, to explore the mind and behavior of man in the most beautiful of surroundings and the most complex, though occasionally intense, of situations.