About
Cheers, my name is Andrew and I live in New Mexico with my wife, our two Australian Shepherds and two Border Collies, and large wooden fish an old roommate retrieved from a trash bin. I was formally trained as a forester at Mississippi State University and worked briefly for Champion International Corporation (it’s now part of International Paper). After clearly deciding industrial forestry wasn’t for me, I went back to MSU and received a M.Sc. in forestry, specializing in longleaf pine growth and yield and artificial intelligence. I spent a significant amount of time writing C++ code, laboring through statistics and computer science courses, and finished after three years. I also developed quite the taste for pc gaming, an indulgence which I still enjoy today (although my wife wonders about me sometimes).
Like a glutton for punishment, I went straight into the Ph.D. program in forest science at Northern Arizona University. Six months in, I met my wife to be, and settled into a program focused on quantitative forest ecology. I won’t bore you with the details, but if you want to you can read my dissertation here. I am now a biometrician for a big government agency (wink), and enjoying the “federal life”. I consider myself a reasonably experienced forester/ecologist with a particular affinity for the quantitative and technological side of research.
My research interests are outlined here in detail, but suffice it to say my interests lie primarily in forest ecology. I am actively involved in all aspects of research, although I do not serve in a formal research position with my current employer. You see… this is all the stuff I do in my spare time (what little there is).
On a personal level, I’m an ENTP on a Myers-Briggs scale. That roughly translates to strongly extraverted, moderately intuitive, thinker, that is moderately perceptive. I don’t have much of a southern accent, unless I say things like “aluminium foal” or “fixin to do something“. I’m constantly trying to be a better dog owner and husband. I’m an amateur photographer with aspiration to be more and I only fish with a fly rod.
