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I grew up in what was then a rural area of South Carolina, where for some reason I developed interests in art, mathematics,
and marine biology. While in high school, I apprenticed with my great uncle (J. I. Boland) in his cabinet shop, and to this
day, I find a great deal of satisfaction in woodworking and home improvement projects.
Some of the other jobs I had include (in roughly chronological order): digger of fine ditches, gas station attendant/mechanic,
tractor-trailer fuel/safety/maintenance guy, professional wrestler (declined), armed guard, welding supply delivery driver,
chandelier assembler, magician, house painter, sign painter, artist, industrial air-filter changer, and blood plasma donor.
Finally, my first professional position related to biology was in the commissary of the Riverbanks Zoological Park and Garden
in Columbia, SC. I was responsible for preparing diets for all of the animals at the zoo. Recalling my early interests in
marine biology and anticipating employment at a future aquarium complex at the zoo, I enrolled at the College of Charleston
to get my undergraduate degree.
At the CofC, I worked with Phil Dustan on software development and data analysis for the Cousteau Society Amazon River Expedition
and Scripps Institute of Oceanography and got to participate in field surveys of coral reef vitality in the Florida Keys.
I graduated in two years, and Dr. Dustan and other members of the Biology Department recommended I pursue a graduate degree.
So, I packed up and headed for the State University of New York at Stony Brook.
In graduate school, I realized I had very little patience for field or lab work and was fascinated by far too many things
to dedicate myself to a single organism or taxonomic group. I did, however, enjoy measuring things and working with the data
that arose from such endeavors. So with the help of Drs. Sokal, Rohlf, Okubo, Slobodkin, Williams, Bell, and others, I eventually
discovered biometry and morphometrics - fields that appeal to my artistic and mathematical sensibilities and allow me to interact
with experts on just about everything that walks, crawls, swims, or flies or did so in the past.
I stayed on after receiving my degree at Stony Brook to continue to take advantage of the rich intellectual environment there.
In addition to being a research professor, I served as the Administrator for Research Computing for the Division of Life Sciences,
Director of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Undergraduate Biology Computing Laboratory, and Manager for Educational Computing
for Undergraduate Biology.
Since 2000, I have had the great honor and privilege of being a Guest Professor in the Institute for Anthropology at the University
of Vienna. Most years find me teaching in Vienna in the Winter semester and otherwise collaborating with the outstanding students,
excellent faculty, and dear friends there. When not doing that, I am a research scientist (see Research section) and teach
courses and workshops at some of the most wonderful and scholarly institutions in the world.
Besides morphometrics, my hobbies are golf and motorcycle touring.
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