| What is your most memorable childhood experience? | My most memorable childhood experience is winning a youth soccer tournament when I was fifteen years old. I was on a top team in the area, but had struggled with a knee injury for a year or two. I had managed to work my way back into a starting defensive role, and when we made the finals it was a sign that things had improved significantly. Winning that game was extremely gratifying after a few years of ups and downs, and led to a relatively rewarding youth soccer career. |
| What immediate family member do you closely identify with and why? | I most closely identify with my sister, for several reasons. We are close in age, and are frequently mistaken for twins. Our personalities match pretty well; we're both laid back and fairly academically inclined. We were close playmates through our childhood, and played the same sports through high school. Although we went to different universities and studied different majors, we ended up starting graduate school in the same city at the same time. We now both hold doctorates in our respective fields, and frequently converse about our work projects when there is some overlap. Most of our communication, however, consists of pictures of our parents' Siberian husky sent via text message whenever one of us is visiting home. I don't really have that sort of professional and friendly bond with anybody else, so for that reason I would pick her for this role. |
| What character traits do you admire in an individual? | I generally look up to people who are motivated to succeed in life, rarely complain, and have easygoing personalities. These are qualities that absolutely describe my parents and the various mentors throughout my academic career, and I would like to think that I exhibit these traits at least some of the time. Almost all of my friends can be described this way, and that probably explains the degrees of early success we have all shared. |
| What is the funniest thing ever to happen to you? | I think the funniest series of events that has happened to me would be the time my high school friends and I took our German exchange students camping on a small island in the Puget Sound. It started off with careful planning: I was to bring assorted camping items, one friend made sure to bring food, and the other secured his uncle's small rowboat. We planned on rowing out to a small island well before sunset, and well before the tide receded and exposed a large mud flat between my friend's dock and the island. Our two German students did not understand the difficulty of paddling/dragging a boat across a mud flat and were a bit slow in getting ready, so we left late. We quickly learned the rowboat had one mostly-broken paddle and could barely fit the five of us. One of the students dropped the flashlights in the water, leaving us with one candle by which to set up our tent. The other student whined that we were splashing her while pushing the boat over mud and rocks out to deeper water. My friend, being unable to see the path by candlelight, wandered into poison oak wearing only sandals. Somehow, we managed to make it out to the island and set up a tent and a small campfire. The best was yet to come, however. We discovered early the next morning that the island was a breeding ground for Canadian geese in the spring, and they were particularly territorial at this point. We immediately packed up and sent the Germans back in the boat with one friend rowing. Myself and the fifth person were alone on an island with dozens of angry geese. They became increasingly aggressive and forced us to walk to the very point of the island. We screamed to our friend who was a hundred yards off the shore to hurry up and come get us. As he rowed in a curved path due to the broken paddle, we hastily debated swimming out to meet him, but decided against it because no one wanted to be attacked by geese while in the water. Eventually, we were extracted from the island in the tiny rowboat after being nipped at by a few geese, but survived. We often retell the story when we are together, and usually have a good laugh over it. |
| If time and money were not an issue, where would you travel and why? | I would love to travel to Southeast Asia (Vietnam, Philippines, Cambodia, etc). I have always really enjoyed their cuisine, and have several friends of Filipino and Vietnamese descent, so I am interested in their culture as well. |
| When and if you ever have children, what would you like to pass on to them? | I would like to pass on healthy curiosity about the world to my kids. My parents' willingness to let me explore the world as a young child, and their insistence that I engage in extracurricular science programs in middle and high school was very helpful in allowing me to build a career from which I derive great satisfaction. Even if my child were not interested in science, curiosity about the inner workings of the world and society in which we live would pay great dividends, no matter their chosen professional field. Additionally, I would like to pass on to my kids financial security and the skills necessary to maintain it. This would allow them to pursue riskier career/lifestyle options and hopefully lead more fulfilling lives. |
