I was born and raised in southern Illinois, roughly 20 miles east of Cahokia Mounds. I attended Ladue Horton Watkins High School in St. Louis, Missouri, and then obtained my B.A. in anthropology from Luther College in Decorah, Iowa. After a year in the Midwest, I moved to Winooski, Vermont and worked at Archaeology Consulting Team, Inc. until 2005. That summer I moved back to the Midwest to enroll in graduate school at the University of Missouri. I am currently in my second year working towards my M.A. and Ph.D. in anthropology/archaeology. I expect to be finished with my M.A. in 2008. I have broad interests in a variety of fields including geology, geography, and archaeometry, and how these disciplines can be integrated into archaeological explanation.