Narrative:
My educational, work, and scientific backgrounds are quite non-traditional, but well suited, I feel, towards building a second, academic career in the professional sciences. This follows a first career in the area of military and civilian nuclear power plant operation and instrumentation. Below is a summary of my history.
I am now in my mid-fourties, married (once) with four children, having grown up in West Palm Beach, Florida, and graduated from John I. Leonard High School in 1979 (a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...). Lacking any real direction at the time, I attended one year at the University of Florida, after which I entered the United States Navy's nuclear power program as an enlisted reactor operator and electronics technician. My area of specialty was in nuclear reactor controls and primary plant instrumentation, in addition to overall plant operations. I remained in the Navy from 1981-1989 (reaching E-6 in rank), with two primary duty stations: first as an instructor at the Nuclear Power Training Unit at Idaho Falls, Idaho -- during which time I met and married my wife, Lisa -- and second as an reactor operator and supervisor aboard the USS Hawkbill (SSN-666), a fast-attack Sturgeon class submarine stationed out of Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.
Image: The USS Hawkbill (SSN-666) cruising slowly in front of the Arizona Memorial in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, 1986.
Following an honorable discharge from the U.S. Navy in late 1989, I began work as a junior nuclear systems engineer for the small California firm of Eigen Engineering, Inc., working on projects related to computerized instrumentation systems for commercial nuclear power plants. Unfortunately, the economic recession of 1991 caused the loss of my position, so I next worked as a systems operator at the Joseph M. Farley Nuclear Plant in southeastern Alabama. This work involved the operation and monitoring of systems throughout the plant, working in conjunction with the operators within the control room. In May of 1993, however, my life and career path were drastically altered when I was permanently blinded in a work related chemical injury (about 95% sight loss).
Image: Farley Nuclear Plant, Ashford, Alabama, 1992.
After two years of medical treatment and blind rehabilitative training, I began building a new career for myself in the summer of 1995. I enrolled as a freshman at Troy State University (Dothan, AL, branch) as a full-time Physical Science major, with the specific goal of pursuing a Ph. D. and academic research/teaching career in the area of small-body solar system astronomy. My interests range from studying planetary moons; the large differentiated asteroids; the smaller primitive asteroids and comets; and down to meteoroids and their interactions with the atmosphere. In January of 1998, I transferred to Florida State University (FSU) as an undergraduate Physics major. This past summer (1999), I also worked as a research assistant (summer intern) at the Supercomputer Computations Research Institute (SCRI), investigating the modeling of very high-density (neutron star type) quark interactions with Dr. Simon Capstick. I have recently graduated from FSU with a B.S. degree in Physics. My constant companions and guides throughout these years of undergraduate school have been my two guide dogs, obtained from The Seeing Eye, in Morristown, New Jersey. My first guide dog was Usher, a beautiful male German Shepherd who is now retired as a family pet. Usher was followed by a spirited, female, black Labrador Retreiver / Golden Retreiver mix named Ivy, who accompanied me through my undergraduate and graduate studies.
Image: A trip to The Seeing Eye (Morristown, New Jersey) to obtain my first guide dog, Usher, in 1995.
With regard to my scientific background, I have been an active amateur astronomer since about age 10, inspired (predictably) by the Apollo moon landing missions. For many years I had been a member of a variety of astronomy clubs and societies, but it was not until 1987 that I began to look for a way to make a more serious contribution as an amateur. I joined with the American Meteor Society (AMS), contributing visual meteor observations and beginning experiments with inexpensive methods for conducting radio forward-scatter meteor data collection. In early 1990, I began a collaborative effort with Dr. David Meisel ( State University of New York at Geneseo) to create an amateur built and operated forward-scatter receiving system capable of collecting professional quality data on meteor events. In March of 1993, a simple prototype system utilizing an Apple IIe as the logging computer began full-time data collection from a receiving station in northwestern Florida. By the fall of 1996, two additional stations had been established operated by other amateurs in California and Maryland. The data collected from these stations has spawned several papers and presentations on both the amateur and professional level.
Image: A 1994 Perseid Fireball, photographed by James Riggs in the Californian Sierra Nevada foothills.
In addition to my work within the AMS Radiometeor Project, I was also appointed as the overall Operations Manager for the American Meteor Society during the 1997-2003 period. My primary goal in this position was to promote amateur-professional collaboration in the area of meteor science, and to seek out new ways in which amateurs can make a valid contribution to professional research. Along these lines, I was 1 of 12 international members (5 professionals and 7 amateurs) of a special Working Group on Professional-Amateur Collaboration in Meteor Science, sponsored by IAU Commission No. 22 (Planetary Dust and Meteors). Additionally, this work also permitted me to gain undergrauate experience in presenting at professional conferences.
Image: My second guide dog and I with Dr. David Meisel at the Asteroids, Comets, and Meteors Conference, July 1999.
It is rare to be given the chance to suddenly switch career tracks into the area of one's dreams, and I am savoring this opportunity to do so. Although my handicap is an inconvenience, I do not let it impede either my scholastic progress or scientific work. I greatly enjoyed the opportunity to attend the UA Department of Planetary Sciences as a graduate student, and to make what I hope was a viable contribution to the research being conducted at that institution. Now, as a post-doctoral Research Associate at Cornell University, I plan to continue in the same vein and build upon this very enjoyable new career.
