| What is your most memorable childhood experience? | My family went on a road trip to a national park. As in many of our family vacations we all piled into the small family van for the long drive. I remember that we made a stop at a tower at the park. I jumped out of the van and started running/climbing up the rockslides at the base of the tower. The piles of boulders were so huge that there were cracks and tunnels under the first layer of boulders that a little kid could explore. That was favorite sort of thing to do as a kid. I got in a bit of trouble with my parents for straying too far, but I think everyone appreciated how special the experience was. |
| What immediate family member do you closely identify with and why? | I have a small immediate family (mom, dad, and sister) so I identify with each of them, just in different ways. Both of my parents were very hard working, and I can't remember a day when the weren't working to improve life for the family. My mom was the heart of the family and ever present at home in all aspects of life despite somehow also holding down a job at the nearby hospital. I learned a lot of wisdom about life from my dad and admire how he worked his way up from being born on a farm, to becoming a construction worker to pay his way through school and ultimately becoming a biochemist. My sister and I, while surprisingly opposite in our good/bad qualities, appreciate each other's differences more and more all the time. |
| What character traits do you admire in an individual? | The character traits I admire in an individual are work ethic, independent thinking, creativity, curiosity, and honesty. |
| What is the funniest thing ever to happen to you? | I've lived in multiple different states, and they all had names starting with the same letter despite making no effort to arrange this. That's not exactly hilarious, but it's not so easy to pick a funny event that would carry it's humor out of context. |
| If time and money were not an issue, where would you travel and why? | I'd probably go to New Zealand. I feel lucky to have had the opportunity to travel for work occasionally, but New Zealand is not likely to ever come up in a work context for me, and the landscape there is famously spectacular. It is also on the opposite side of the Earth, far from anywhere I've ever been. |
| When and if you ever have children, what would you like to pass on to them? | If I had children, I would want to pass on to them a sense of joy in exploring life's opportunities, fascination with the natural world around us, work ethic, value of friends and family, and pride in a job well done. |
