About me
I am a senior scientist specializing in biology and computer science. Originally I am from Burnt Chimney, Virginia and I am a graduate of Virginia Western Community College and Virginia Tech.
Currently I am researching the efficacy of artificial intelligence based models for their use in the detection and management of emergent infectious diseases and invasive arthropod species.
As a child I worked for my mother who was a vegetable producer. My mom also made sure I went to all the after school programming classes because I never shut up about computers.I have continued this work of mixing plants and computers for most of my life.
After graduating from college I worked for the Animal and Plant Quarantine Service within the U.S. Department of Agriculture. As an agriculture office I investigated outbreaks of invasive insects and emerging diseases. My specialization in entomology and botany resulted in me working throughout the U.S. I was a member of the development team that maintained large scale infectious disease and insect outbreak management systems at that time.
In 2006 I had the opportunity to work as a consultant for the government of Senegal. I worked alongside remote border villages that were trying to establish their own large scale tree planting nurseries and vegetable plots.
After returning from Africa I returned to working for the USDA. In 2015 I retired from the government and established myself as an independent consultant.Since then, I have assisted a wide variety of customers in building their own self managed solutions to business problems. I have conducted independent research from Canada to Bolivia in the Americas and southeast Asia.
My work mostly focuses on automation of high volume data collection and processing. I have consulted both large corporations and small enterprise with their migrations from outdated systems to modern architecture.
In the fall of 2024 I began working as an assistant professor at Virginia Western Community College. I teach the Plant Pest Management course for the horticulture department.
At Virginia Tech I am the Hokie BugZoo curator and also a multimedia producer for the pesticide education program.
My personal research interest is in the development of modern technical training programs using classical apprenticeship methodology.
