At the start of ’01 I was a full-time database administrator at Yorkshire Global Restaurants and a part-time engineering student at the University of Kentucky. I had my whole life planned: finish my degree to make myself more marketable, keep working in IT where I was making a good salary, and retire early. It was a good plan. But then I took two physics courses in Winter ‘01 – and my life was upended. I thought those courses, Modern Physics and Condensed Matter Physics, were painful but beautiful, and fascinating, and … well I guess I was falling in love with physics. Even better than the coursework, the instructor for Condensed Matter Physics, Prof. Yuri Sushko, invited me to do research with him and I found myself spending several hours a week in his lab. By the end of that semester I decided to become a physicist. A little over a year later I had quit my job and become a physics graduate student. So much for the plan.

Graduate school was hard, but it was also great: I made life-long friends; I was fascinated by the things I learned; and I enjoyed doing research. I feel fortunate that I got to work in Prof. Nick Martin’s lab from my first day of graduate school. Mucking around in the lab doing electron-scattering experiments was fun. Nick gave me support when I needed it, but also gave me room to do things on my own. He was the perfect advisor for me. I continued in Nick’s lab as a Post-Doc after I graduated in ’07.

But all good things must come to an end. I left UK to take a tenure-track position at Illinois Wesleyan University (IWU) in ’09. IWU is a small liberal arts university that had five faculty members in the physics department when I started. Besides working on atomic physics research – my focus was on laser-assisted elastic scattering – I also collaborated with a colleague in the psychology department to develop automated methods for tracking fish in his experiments, and studied auditory illusions with a colleague from music. Of course teaching was a large part of my job, and I taught over 15 different classes. I also started an interdisciplinary program that combined design, science and entrepreneurship. I spent three years running that program and chairing the physics department.

I was promoted to full professor in ’20, but left IWU that year to go into government service. I became director of the radiation laboratories at the US Army’s Chemical School. In that position I led a team of civilians and soldiers who taught courses on radiation safety, and how to deal with radiation on the battlefield. Then in ’22 I went to the Pentagon to be the Air Force’s program manager for chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear survivability – yes, it’s a mouthful. I really liked the team I worked with, and enjoyed the DC area. But just six months later I saw a job opening to be a research director based in Australia for the US Army. I applied and … I’ve been in Australia since ’23. While my job title is “research director” my real function is to be a technology scout looking for basic research that might be interesting for the Army. I get to visit scientists in a wide range of disciplines and listen to their great ideas for future projects. The fact that I can sometimes provide some funding for research makes me a welcome visitor. It’s a lot of fun.

I started this story saying that I had a plan, but then my life got upended by physics. I came up with a new plan several years ago. My new plan is to keep finding jobs where I’m contributing to society, doing interesting things, and having fun. In another year I’ll probably return to the USA. I don’t know what I’ll be doing then, but it’s all going according to plan.