I was born in Ann Arbor Michigan and soon thereafter moved to a small town north of Green Bay Wisconsin. I grew up cross country skiing and exploring in the northern mesic forests of that area. My interest in chemistry bloomed early and I often entertained my family with homemade fire works and occasional was responsible for extremely loud reports in the evenings. I obtained a B.S. in Chemistry in 1988 from the University of Wisconsin. In 1991 I obtained my M.S. degree working with Peter Kovacic on electro-organic chemistry. I then moved to the northwest and worked for Dick Haugland at Molecular Probes. This was a very influential time in my life as I learned that I really loved to engineer molecules for an application and I was given the opportunity to explore and learn a wide variety of synthetic chemistry.

In 1995 we moved again to Seattle Washington where I was part of a start up drug delivery company called Tacora Corporation where my work was crucial in developing the company's core technology. While still and employee of Tacora, I matriculated at Duke University in Durham, NC where I joined the group of my second mentor Prof. David Needham. While at Duke I worked on Tacora's core technology and biosurface engineering and polymer chemistry. I spent several years trying to coat small microgel particles with lipid bilayers, studying the properties of hydrogel microspheres, and designing and testing a novel set of bioerodible crosslinkers. I obtained my Ph.D. in 1999. In June 1999 the dot-com boom was still running strong and I became a member of the management team of a combinatorial chemistry and chemoinformatics company called ChemCodes. There as VP of Chemistry I worked with another brilliant mentor Prof. Mario Geysen who is now at the University of Virginia. This was another exciting time in my professional life and I learned about high throughput methods in experimentation and combinatorial sciences. This taught me among other things to never run one reaction at a time. I came to Utah in late 2002 to start my independent research career. I currently consult for a number of start-up and established companies in the area of drug delivery, formulations technology and advanced materials for biological applications. Our lab is focused on microbicide based research. Where we work to develop drug delivery technologies for the prevention of HIV infection.

Outside of the lab I enjoy cross country skiing, exploring ghost towns in the basin and range lands, hiking and aikido ( I hold the rank of shodan, 1st degree blackbelt). I listen to jazz more or less exclusively. My wife is an architect and we enjoy traveling the world to see modern design and great buildings.

I teach three courses, Introduction to Bioengineering (Bioen 1102) and Senior Thesis Project (BIOEN 4201,4202) and Molecular Principles of Biomaterials (BIOEN 6900). Students requesting letters of recommendation please read these directions.