I was born and raised in Athens, Ohio. I earned my undergraduate in Classics and World Religions from Ohio University as well as a certificate in East Asian Studies. After graduating, my wife and I moved to Orange County, California for a summer. We quickly moved from our time in California to Beijing where we spent half a year teaching literature and conversational English at Beijing area high schools. Since we have been back in America we have moved to Pittsburgh where my wife is a photojournalist for the Beaver County Times. Over the past year I have been researching the process of joining the State Department as a Foreign Service Officer. My focus in this program is going to be cross-cultural communication in hopes of becoming a much better candidate for the State Department.