I was born and raised in Evansville, Indiana, where I developed interests in soccer, running, swimming, biking, hiking, playing the clarinet, and fell in love with being outdoors in general.  Learning in general was always something I loved, reading books was a big favorite in particular.  Throughout the years, I have added cooking, traveling, gardening, peacemaking, community building, and making art to my list of loves and hobbies. I was not particularily drawn to Mathematics growing up, though I looked for patterns all around me as a kind of secret game everywhere I went, and had a facility for remembering phone numbers.

After taking a wide variety of courses, with the initial intent of pursuing a scientific degree, I realized that Math was the only thing I could do all day long and not tire of. Once I was first asked to write a proof, I began to see math could be something interesting in itself, rather than just being a tool for understanding something else. Once I began to truly understand mathematics, I was drawn in by it's beauty, and wanted to master it's logic. In what was a surprise even to myself, I went on to get a B.S. in Mathematics, minor in Physics from Indiana University in Bloomington (and close to a minor in Sociology). And next came a Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from the University of Texas at Austin,  where I also developed interests in peacemaking.

After grad school, I did two years as a VIGRE post-doctoral professor at Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio, two years into which I married my beloved Luis Finotti.   We moved on to the University of Tennessee, where I spent 3 and half years as a postdoctoral professor.   My path kept bringing me closer and closer to working on the types of environmental issues I hope to, using mathematics. 

My son was born, in the meantime, and I decided I wanted to be home with him.  I stayed home with him for a few years, doing some independent tutoring, and returned to UT to teach a course here and there in the spring of 2012. After a bit of part time work, while my son was still small, I came back to UT as a lecturer in the fall of 2013.

My doctoral research was centered on studying flow in vuggy porous media (pertaining to subsurface flow such as groundwater flow in aquifers), and I am now working on understanding two-species competition with inhomogeneous resources.  The latter can help us to better understand how to manage ecosystems, and inparticular I hope to shed some light on how to better deal with invasive species.

Studying mathematics has been an incredible gift.   I have gained so much more from it than just learning how to prove theorems or work on analytical problems.  There is a clarity that you learn - a rigor of thought - that carries over into all of your life.  With care, I feel that it can truly help you live a better life in general by helping you to become better able to discern truth from untruth, and when someone's logic (including your own) isn't really logical at all.   Many problems in many people's lives boil down to believing in and living their lives from illusions about themselves and the world around them.

Research and grad school in general taught me  how much I can actually  do on my own.    I realized quickly that I had been "spoon-fed" pretty much all of my knowledge until college, which in my opinion was a great disservice.  I see now the enormous value of struggling with material on your own, making mistakes, and then learning how to find your own way through them to real understanding (as opposed to knowing only how to give the right answer).   My heart saddens to think of all of the people out there who have never had this experience, because their teachers or school system wanted to make it "easy enough", and who now are sure that they can't learn things on their own and feel stuck in their lives as a consequence.  I strongly believe our society would greatly benefit from being taught how to be successful independent learners in school, in addition to what is currently emphasized.

Consequently, if there is one big scheme thing I want my students to take away from attending college,  it's learning how to become successful at learning independently (the end of educational co-dependence!).  It's amazing to me how much more exhilerating and BIG life becomes when you realize if you want to do something you can learn how, and you can do much of it independently. Of course, we all need some support from time to time in that process, and I'm here to help when you need it!