I graduated from Clark University in wonderful Worcester, MA in 2003. At Clark, I majored in physics and mathematics.  If you would like to contact me, please use my email address. The picture on your right is a picture of me taken by one of my friends. 

I am currently working at Brigham and Women's Hospital as an MRI research assistant. Prior to this time, I was working at Boston Medical Center in conjunction with Tufts-NEMC as an MRI research assistant. The research dealt with characterizing the diffusion of proteins through the eye. The current model of the blood aqueous barrier of the eye states that proteins diffuse from the ciliary body into the posterior chamber and then enter the anterior chamber of the eye via tight junctions of the eye. Our hypothesis is that the protein diffuse from the ciliary body into the iris root and then enters the anterior chamber. This research is important for developing drug treatments for eye diseases such as glaucoma. The results may also explain why some people are more prone to certain eye diseases. This research has also lead to a small collaboration with Ohio State University.

While attending Clark, I performed research in the granular materials laboratory with professor Professor Kudrolli and Dr. Daniel Blair. While working in the lab, I studied the properties of a granular system of rods. The experiment consisted of a circular cell that was filled with a bunch of randomly distributed metal rods (0.25 inches in length and 0.5 mm in diameter). Some energy was then imparted into the system through vibrations (horizontally or vertically). Over time, the rods became vertically aligned and if conditions were correct the vertically aligned regions would nucleate and form a vortex of vertical rods. Systems which exhibit this phase change are known as self-assembling systems.

These systems exhibit different properties according to their phase map or phase space. Examples of these systems would be: the different phases of water (vapor, liquid, and solid) or liquid crystals and colloids. If you have ever seen a Liquid Crystal Display (LCD), the display works by applying an electric field to the molecules within the liquid. The applied electric field changes the optical properties of the crystal and the output is what you see on the screen. This explanation is very simplistic and the reader is encouraged to go to the following webpage to learn more about liquid crystals.

If you like to see some of the work that was done on the project, please go here.  It contains movies of the experiment and an explanation of our findings.

To your right, you can see a poster of my research which explains some of the results. The poster was made for the Spring '03 academic spree day at Clark. The poster was created using a programming language known as LaTeX. The template for the poster came from the University of Florida  and you can download the template file here. The picture files that are associated with the template file are here.