After obtaining a B.S. in Physics and a B.S. in Psychology from Harvey Mudd College, and a Master's of Computer Science from the University of South Florida, I find that my nomadic academic pursuits have led me to the Entertainment Technology Center at Carnegie Mellon University, where I am currently a Master's Candidate. The ETC brings artists and technologists together to research and develop interactive entertainment experiences using cutting edge digital technology.

My passion is animatronic creatures; as a child growing up in Orlando I spent countless hours watching the Pirates of the Caribbean and the birds of the Tiki Room, trying to figure out how they conveyed such realistic personality and emotion. Twenty years later I'm still fascinated by that "spark" that transforms a Maya model of a turtle into Crush, a living character at EPCOT that kids eagerly interact with, and transforms a collection of servos and fiberglass shells into Quasi, the childlike robot at the ETC that wants to interact with people so badly, he uses candy as a bribe to get people to talk to him.

With my background in social psychology and human-robot interaction, I'm really interested in designing interactive social experiences centered around robots (or animated characters). Ultimately, I would like these experiences to be both educational and entertaining, or "edutaining". I'm excited to be at the ETC where I can learn more about art and robotics from some of the most talented people in the world.