Our family ended up on a farm at the end of a 1-mile long gravel road in south central Kentucky in 1977 as I was about to enter 8^th grade.  Our parents were part of the “back to the land” diaspora that drew many suburban families to the country.  Needless to say, they weren’t cut out for the lifestyle, so the kids ended up being prime candidates for Berea College.  All four of us attended.  Three of us met our spouses here.  Two are on its faculty.  Thank you, Berea.

My major was going to be either art or physics.  Teaching was nowhere on the list.  I chose physics because I figured it would provide a job.  Soon, I picked up a mathematics major as well.  I was blessed to be offered a labor position in the Physics Department from my first term.  I was the Astronomy TA while I took the course.  (I read ahead in the text.)  During my junior year, I began to worry about my post-Berea options—that is until I had an epiphany.  I had been doing the thing I loved for my entire time at Berea — teaching.  Consequently, I took a 5^th year and also earned teacher certification.

My first job was teaching Physical Science at Sue Bennet Junior College in Somerset, Kentucky.  After two years at Sue Bennet, my wife and I took jobs at Sandy Spring Friends School in northern Maryland.  SSFS is a Quaker boarding school.  (We’re Quakers.)  During our five years at SSFS, our first two sons were born.  In 1994, we moved to Bloomfield Kentucky and started teaching math and physics at Spencer County High School.  In 1998, I earned National Board Certification in high school science.  I was the first teacher in Kentucky to earn this certification.  At the time, nation-wide only 0.5% of teachers were National Board Certified Teachers (NBCTs).  Immediately afterward, I became active as a mentor for other teachers pursuing the certification.  Soon thereafter, I was elected president of our new professional association, the Kentucky Association for National Board Certified Teachers.

In the spring of 2004, I decided to leave the teaching profession to pursue a graduate degree in Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Louisville.  I remember thinking at the time, “I’d like to get a job at a school like Berea.”  When I was finishing my Ph.D in the spring of 2007, Berea’s Education Studies advertised for a tenure-track faculty position.  Needless to say, I applied.  And now you’re reading this bio.

A current focus of my scholarship is evaluating and researching the effectiveness of STEM professional development, including designing effective teacher preparation programs.  Another is creating structures and curricula for our STEM Outreach Center in the new Margaret A. Cargill Natural Sciences and Health Building and supporting my STEM colleagues as they innovate in their classrooms.