During my senior year at the University of California at Santa Cruz, I decided that a career in bicycle racing was more exciting than a BA in Biology. I joined the county’s cycling team, and was able to support myself as a professional bicycle racer. Sidelined by an injury after two years on the racing circuit, I returned to school and decided to follow my heart by choosing to study painting. Nine years after I first entered college, I finally earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Academy of Art College and the University of San Francisco.
Subsequent years of work in a variety of jobs included teaching swimming; sculpting and casting plaster ornaments for Victorian-era houses; sculpting, casting and painting fake "big game" animal heads for Banana Republic stores; installing art shows; and surveying every parking lot in San Francisco for a local urban planner. Eventually, these jobs drove me back to school, to acquire the credentials to do what I do best--combining my creativity, my love of science, and (being the oldest of five children) my desire to boss people around. After completing the credential program at San Francisco State University, I was offered an AT & T Fellowship to continue to study education. I completed my Master of Arts in Education, with an emphasis on middle school education, in 1993. I taught both math and science at a private middle school in San Mateo County, California, for six years. I took a leave from teaching when I was given the opportunity to be a Teacher-in-Residence at the Exploratorium Teacher Institute. (Click here to go to the Exploratorium Teacher Institute's web site.) After two years of the "best job in the world", I am now a staff teacher with the Teacher Institute, and still have the world’s best job.
As a life-long learner, I love new challenges, both in education and recreation. My latest educational challenge was to complete the mathematics course work required to earn a math credential. One of my educational and creative challenges this year is returning to painting after a five-year hiatus. My latest and continuing recreational challenge has been learning to surf. When I'm not in the classroom or the museum, I’m in the water, surfing in the ocean or windsurfing on the Bay.
