I attended Southern Illinois University for my undergraduate degree in anthropology and archeology and my master's degree in geography and GIScience. I then attended the University of Iowa for my PhD, also in geography and GIScience. I served as a postdoctoral scholar at the IIHR Hydroinformatics Lab working on research related to GIS and hydroscience. I am currently an assistant research scientist at IIHR.

Other research that interests me is information visualization and cartography. Some fun facts about me are that I am left handed and I have two cats, Otis and Leon.