My biggest core principles in design engineering are to involve stakeholders early, spend time clearly defining problems and the ecosystems that they live in, work iteratively, and produce designs that are pleasant to interact with.

I have always been fascinated by how designers shape and affect the built world that we interact with, and grew up tinkering with anything mechanical much to the dismay of my mom. I am endlessly fascinated by the intersection of “function” and “form” and have an irrational love of woodworking blueprints, Japanese cooking knives, and the podcast 99 Percent Invisible. Greek Ares is a national treasure.

I am attending school at the Colorado School of Mines as a Design Engineering student with a focus in product design. I previously attended Louisiana Tech for Electrical Engineering and Mathematics. Mines has been an incredible influence on me and my approach to designing and building, and I am incredibly thankful to them for my education there.

My favorite design related books are “Pretotype It” and “Talking to Humans”. They, and countless other materials have greatly influenced my approach to design and caused me to constantly ask “Am I solving the right problem” and “How do I quickly and efficiently test that”.

I grew up in Louisiana and have greatly benefitted from its’ culture surrounding food. I am a huge fan of Kenji alt Lopez and Harold McGee - the original food science authoritarian. I am currently on the hunt for the perfect gel-fluid technique for making teriyaki sauce.

As of this writing, I am learning how to play chess (poorly) and have a 2,000 Elo in Go (1 dan). I do jiu-jitsu for exercise and fun skill development and am currently a purple belt; it’s the best game of them all. I co-own a small club gym in Golden Colorado and teach there several times a week putting an emphasis on ecological approaches to movement learning based on research from Rob Gray and Doug Lemov.

Lastly, the dog tax is my best friend, Huckleberry