About Me

I was born in Charlottesville, Virginia on April 5, 1967. My family moved to Jacksonville, Florida just before I began kindergarten. I graduated from Sandalwood High School in 1985. I graduated from the University of Florida (in Gainesville) in 1988 with a degree in Sociology. From there I moved to Riverside California to attend the University of California, Riverside. I earned my Ph.D. in Sociology in 1995.

I have a husband and two kids. Randall and I met in Colorado, where I had my first post-graduate job running a social science computer lab at the University of Colorado. We began dating in 1993 and married in 1996 [See the wedding pictures]. Randall is attending seminary at Duke University and is pastoring a small church in rural North Carolina (and I'm now known as "the preacher's wife"). We have two daughters: Elisabeth was born in 1998, and Sophie was born in 2002. We have three cats: Achilles, Turtle, and Hannah.

Much of my undergraduate and early graduate education revolved around criminal justice issues. When my husband began teaching Political Science at the University of New Mexico, I was hired at the University of New Mexico's Institute for Social Research. Although I've worked on several research projects, the majority of my time was spent with the New Mexico Criminal and Juvenile Justice Coordinating Council, where I eventually became the Executive Director. Since the Fall of 2003, I've been doing crime and justice evaluation research at RTI International in North Carolina.

I have a strong interest in computers, running the above-metioned computer lab and developing web sites since 1995. In addition to my day job, I co-own Aphids Communications, a small web site development and design company.