Brief background/experiences
I was a studio art major looking toward an English minor for two years at Emory & Henry College but transferred to the University of Tennessee to pursue architecture. I worked for one year as a student researcher for the UT Center for Clean Products, a branch of the Institute for a Secure and Sustainable Environment. I have participated in two mini-terms with the college of architecture; the first was a three-week study of palimpsest in four proximal cities (Stockholm, Helsinki, St. Petersburg, Tallinn) and the second was a three-week tour of Portugal and Spain with the intent of discovering and adding to our artistic conscience through field sketching. This year, my last year, I am working on a thesis project and am a TA for the first year drawing class.

The University of Tennessee is in my hometown of Knoxville, so it was an obvious choice. I realized I wanted to be an architect when I was in 5th grade and our school's TAG program brought in an architect to show us how to draw a very basic floor plan and then build our design out of foam board. The thought of creating habitable space with my own hands and mind seems to me the most fascinating and beautiful of human endeavors.

Architecture interests
I am most interested in sustainability, not as a trend or a marketable buzzword but at an integrated way of designing. I seek to understand the built environment as inseparable from the natural environment. I am interested in architecture as a method for developing, sustaining, and supporting communities as well as individuals. I am interested in architecture as a narrative specific to and different for each individual. I love its experiential qualities - light and shadow, texture, acoustics, smells, movement. I love its psychological and spiritual resonance.

Other interests
I like to ride my bicycle, anywhere and everywhere. I rode it from Knoxville to Rhode Island this summer and want to plan an even longer trip next summer. I am interested in bicycle culture and how it might continue to grow and what I can do to help stimulate that growth. I love stories - I love to read and listen to podcasts and hear people talk. I am interested in cooking, from grocery store to dish drainer. I love science and how we figure out new mind-blowing things about the world on a daily basis. I like to sing and I am interested in Knoxville's music culture. I'm interested in pretty much anything, if only for 5 minutes at a time.