Welcome to my world. I was born about 40 years ago in Philadelphia. Shortly after birth, my family moved to Long Island, New York. I grew up in Islip Terrace, and attended public schools in East Islip. I was a shy, bookish kid with a few close friends.

I became interested in science at an early age. I collected rocks, especially crystals, and during summer vacations our family would take me to places to dig. When I was a teenager, I came to know Merrill Garnett, a scientist who greatly influenced my career decisions.

In 1977, I graduated from East Islip High School, and left for college in Canada. I attended McGill University, in Montreal, for the next four years. I studied chemistry, biochemistry, and biology at McGill. Towards the end of my undergraduate years, I began to take an interest in agricultural research.

After college, I took my first real job working at the New York Agricultural Experiment Station, in Geneva NY. I helped a PhD student working with grapes. Together we performed many experiments trying to perfect methods of growing grapes in vitro (in test tubes and petri plates).

After several years, I decided to go to graduate school. At the University of Maine, I worked on protoplast cell culture of potato. I introduced a fungal toxin to cell cultures, trying to develop disease-resistant cells. I regenerated some plants from these cultures, which were entered in Maine's potato breeding program.
 

After two years in graduate school, I became sick, and had to withdraw for awhile. During this time, I did a lot of soul-searching, and became dissatisfied with my life up until then. I began looking at spiritual matters, and read quite a bit about meditation and Buddhism. Eventually I finished my Master's degree, in 1986. After that I began meditating regularly, and visited Zen Mountain Monastery often. I moved in to the Monastery in 1987, and stayed for nearly four years.
 

I moved to New York City in 1991. I took a job at the Population Council, an international family planning organization, best known for its research on contraceptives. I worked in the publications office, and was responsible for maintaining a large database for several scholarly journals. During this time, I became interested in becoming a teacher. I began taking night classes at the School of Education at New York University.

In 1994, I began my student teaching at Manhattan Comprehensive Night and Day High School. Because of its evening schedule of classes, it was the only school in New York where I could complete my coursework for my second Master's degree and still maintain a full time job. I was hired as a science teacher at MCNDHS in 1995.

Today, I teach science and technology to ESL students. I am involved in a number of interesting activities, including raising money to build a state of the art science lab in our school, and building and maintaining a school website. I work very closely with a NYU professor, Dr. Brian Murfin.