About Me

My Goals

My Journey

My resume can be found by following this link: RESUME

I grew up in a suburban area north of the city of Wilmington, DE, a place which was most famous for its tax-free shopping and adjacency to the borders of other states. Growing up, I was influenced by the TV show Captain Planet to be environmentally friendly, a trait which was strengthened by my involvement in the Boy Scouts of America. I learned to respect nature and live alongside it. I also always loved to build things, from Legos to IKEA furniture and my imagination was always being expanded by the fantastical worlds found in video games and science fiction books.

I knew that I wanted to make things and when I chose the University of Colorado Boulder's Environmental Design program I was convinced I would become an architect. Throughout my schooling, however, I found myself drawn to larger scales of thinking and those beliefs and connections with the natural world that I had fostered growing up. Learning more every year about how important the landscape is to people living in the suburbs, cities, and slums of the world showed me the potential to share my love for the natural world with others, to make differences in the lives of individuals and communities and to help create experiences similar to those I had growing up.

So now I find myself an environmental designer with an emphasis in landscape architecture and a solid background in architecture and urban planning. And I'm ready to get started.

So many issues and opportunities surround the field of landscape architecture today: stormwater management, increased urbanization, urban agriculture, global warming, the list goes on. There is a quote from one of my favorite science fiction stories that I like to think about when faced with so many problems: "The universe is a dark place. I'm trying to make it brighter before I die." This embodies my main goal in my proferssional career: I want to help make people's communities and lives better. To me, nature and landscape architecture is about so much more than just a beautiful scene or show of grandeur. It is about the social values embedded within the natural environment, the systems which underlay both built and natural environments, the importance of the public realm, and the regenerative effects that nature can have, especially in urban and downtrodden areas.

Within my first few years of entering the profession, I see myself working with a medium to large-sized firm on a mix of residential, commercial, and urban landscape projects. My next step would be to work on the government side of things, perhaps in a parks and recreation or landscape department, creating new public spaces and enhancing existing ones. Throughout my career, I want to give back and help young, new undergraduates and professionals in their journeys. I will always remember the things I've learned from my professors and I want to create that same experience for the next generation of designers through teaching and sitting in on reviews and critiques. While I may not make the universe a brighter place before I go, I certainly hope to have made parts of this world brighter for those living there and for those to come in the future.