My Journey
Scroll through the places in the story map below to take an interactive journey through my life and career.
Click through the headings below for an accessible version of the interactive map tour above
Ohio, Where It All Began
I grew up in a medium sized town in Northwest Ohio. My interest in maps and geography really developed from the time I spent taking flying lessons. This had me convinced I was going to be a pilot until life had other plans and I decided to go to college for meteorology.
The Ohio State University
My interest in meteorology brought me to The Ohio State University. It was close to home but still far enough away to feel like I was on my own. Unfortunately, meteorology requires a lot of calculus, which it turns out I wasn’t very good at so I decided to pivot to international studies. After a year or two in international studies, I took an intro to GIS class. I was hooked and decided to add geography as my second major. I graduated in 2010 with a double major in Geography and International Studies.
Study Abroad in South Africa
During my junior year at OSU, I got to spend five weeks at Stellenbosch University in Stellenbosch, South Africa. While there we helped teach lessons at schools in Kayamandi Township. The experience off working with incredibly smart kids who would be at a disadvantage in life because they were born in Kayamandi and not on the other side of the hill in Stellenbosch was one of the first times I experienced how place could have such a dramatic impact on health.
Franklin County Emergency Management and Homeland Security Agency
While I was at OSU, I interned at the Franklin County Emergency Management and Homeland Security Agency where I was helping them develop and implement their first geographic information system (GIS). After I graduated, I was offered full time job managing their GIS and serving as the subject matter expert (SME) for GIS during exercises and responses. Part of this work included partnering with the local public health department. This, along with my time in South Africa is when I realized there was so much potential for GIS to help address issues in health. I decided to go back to school to get my Master of Public Health degree.
University of Toledo
I made the decision to get my Master of Public Health (MPH) at the University of Toledo in part because it was close to home but also (and maybe more importantly) I was able to get a scholarship to attend. At the same time, I started a job managing the City of Perrysburg’s GIS implementation so I decided to go to school part time in order to keep working in the GIS field and keep my skills up to date.
City of Perrysburg
Thankfully the City of Perrysburg was close to my MPH program which made it easy to do both. In addition to managing the GIS for the city, one highlight was helping locate a new fire station by creating a linear regression based geospatial analytical model to predict travel times for public safety vehicles. This helped us accurately model travel times from hypothetical stations to identify the ideal location of the new fire station. I worked for the city until shortly after I graduated with my MPH.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
After I graduated with my MPH, I was determined to combine my GIS skills with my interest in public health. In the fall of 2015, I went to a health GIS conference in Atlanta, GA where I was able to meet people from the CDC’s Geospatial Research, Analysis, and Services Program (GRASP). This led to an offer for an ORISE fellowship in Atlanta, GA. My wife and I had just gotten married so we figured it was as good a time as any to move to Atlanta. Shortly after moving, I made the transition to a contractor position at GRASP where I spent the next three years doing some really amazing work.
World Health Organization
One of the projects I got to work on while at the CDC, was Polio eradication with the World Health Organization (WHO). This meant that I got to spend five weeks working at WHO headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. Much like my time in South Africa, this was truly an enlightening experience.
Mercer University, MPH Program
While I was working at the CDC, I got connected with the Mercer University, College of Health Professions and started teaching an Intro to Geographic Information Systems (GIS) class in the Master’s of Public Health Program.
Moving Home and Wendy’s
While living in Atlanta, my wife and I had our first child. It was only then that we truly realized how much we valued being around family. We knew wanted our son and any future children to grow up close to family so we made the difficult decision to leave the CDC and Atlanta, and move back to Ohio. I found a job at Wendy’s International where I helped identify locations for new restaurants around the world. While there I became the subject matter expert (SME) on the analysis and applications of large-scale human movement and mobility data.
The Ohio Colleges of Medicine Government Resource Center
Working at Wendy’s was good but I needed to get back into public health. A former colleague shared a job posting for a researcher specializing in GIS at the Ohio Colleges of Medicine Government Resource Center which as part of The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center. I jumped at the chance and was thrilled to be able to get back to health GIS. I got to develop workflows with SQL and Python that processed over 1 billion Medicare claims records. I also developed GIS applications to support the State of Ohio Department of Health during COVID-19. Things were going great until I got a phone call from my former contracting company at the CDC.
Back to the CDC
The phone call was offering me a remote position back at GRASP. My contracting company had won a new contract and now that employees could work remote, they called to see if I wanted to come back. As much as I loved working at the Government Resource Center at OSU, I was thrilled to be able to go back and support GRASP at the CDC. I am extremely proud of the work I currently do and it is incredibly impactful. I’ve been able to develop critical solutions for Division of Vital Statistics (DVS) in the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), the Division of Violence Prevention (DVP) in the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control (NCIPC), the Vessel Sanitation Program (VSP) in the National Center for Environmental Health (NCEH), and the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR).
WANT TO CHAT?
Whether you just want talk about the role location plays in health, nerd out about health maps, or hear more about what I do, feel free to send me a message!