Hey, and thanks for vising my site. As you may or may not know I am a second year Structural Engineering  Ph.D. student at Virginia Tech. I did my B.S. and M.S. at the University of Oklahoma, where my thesis was on partial joint penetration welds used in demand critical welds on seismic force resisting systems. While I was working on my M.S.  I worked part time at the structural engineering firm, B.C. Steel. While there I mostly worked on updating in-house software and with licensed engineers designing low rise metal buildings.  Upon completion of my M.S. I started a Ph.D. at the University of Delaware. While the school and other graduate students were great, I was working on a research topic I was not passionate about.  I still very much wanted to do a Ph.D. but not in this area of research. It was for this reason that after a year at Delaware I transferred  to Virginia Tech.  My research topic at Tech was much more aligned with my interests and this past year and a half at Tech has been amazing.

When I am not working I am typically running, climbing, hiking, or working out.  I love visiting national and state parks. My climbing trips have taken me all of the country and I have seen some beautiful places and wrestled some beautiful rocks.