I'm a statistics professor at Carnegie Mellon University, focusing on data science as applied to biological or biomedical areas such as genomics and infectious disease tracking. I love traveling and meeting people from other places and cultures. In my free time I mostly spend time with my wife and daughter. I enjoy hiking, bike riding, and other outdoor activities. I love scuba diving but I haven't had the chance to do it in several years. I enjoy sports like tennis, soccer, frisbee, and basketball but I'm not very good at any of them. I'm originally from a rural area in the southern USA, but have also lived in Boston, Washington DC, Costa Rica, and the Philippines.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

Sometimes I travel to other cities for work and it's nice to try to meet up with locals or other travelers for lunch or dinner or to just walk around. In 2007 I spent a year in the Philippines doing ecology research and met a lot of great friends through couchsurfing. I deleted my profile when CS started making us pay (maybe around 2019). But recently I haven't found any other sites that fill the niche CS does so I'm going to try it again.

Interests

• hiking
• conversation

Music, Movies, and Books

Music: I like Brazilian music, older stuff like Rolling Stones, recently have been listening to George Harrison, the Band.

Movies: generally action, sci fi, mystery, spy stuff, or comedies. eg The Departed, the Prestige, Alien(s), Terminator 2, Heat (Michael Mann), A Mighty Wind, Idiocracy, Harlem Nights. Also silly kids movies like Muppett Treasure Island.

Books: my favorite fiction author is Neal Stephenson (eg Cryptonomicon), favorite nonfiction author is Charles C. Mann (eg 1493), I also like Jared Diamond.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

hitchiking across Sabah, Borneo.

Countries I’ve Visited

Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Scotland, Singapore, South Korea, Turkey

Countries I’ve Lived In

Costa Rica, Philippines, United States