I am a Florida boy originally. After some years in the Army I found myself assigned to Hawaii, and when they told me it was time to leave I resigned to study mosquitoes. The Navy has been kind enough to pay me for my time as a student, allowing me to make an honest living and support a family while I learn to be a biologist.

Education

University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2007-2010
M.S., Entomology (in progress)

United States Military Academy, 1992-1996
B.S., Computer Science

I am interested in the history and interactions of mosquitoes in Hawaii, particularly Aedes albopictus and Aedes aegypti, vectors of a number of human diseases including yellow fever, dengue fever and Chikungunya. Originating in different parts of the world as tree-hole breeding sylvatic mosquitoes, these two closely related species have both domesticated to the human-built environment and have spread around the world in the past few centuries. For the most part, they occupied different areas until the 1980's, and their competition is now under study in Florida and Brazil; in Hawaii they were both introduced in the 1890's and their co-existence here is probably as long as any other place in the world.

US Army, 1996-2008
As an Army engineer I had a wide variety of jobs including building bridges in South Korea, training new soldiers in Missouri and South Carolina, and peacekeeping in Bosnia. Most recently from 2005-2008 I worked in Hawaii and several months a year in Asia recovering MIA remains.