Biography
Hours wise I am a junior studying biology. I am hoping to be back to the Great White North by next year (Fall 09) to enjoy my toques,chesterfields, and to hear the letter Z be pronounced Z'ed and not Zee, all while attending a graduate program. As you have guessed I am a Canuck and am from a place called Thunder Bay, in the province of Ontario. (Its about 7 hours north of Minneapolis, MN, nestled along Lake Superior).
I have a wonderful wife, Jeni, and we have a cute little girl, McKensie. We have been married for over two years and have known each other since high school. My wife is from West Jordan, Utah, but moved to Canada when she was 13. My daughter was born here in Provo, 15 months ago.
I am a very athletic person and recently I have gotten into rock climbing, while holding onto my fanatical roots of hockey, which I try to play year round. I play most of the other sports on request as long as I have my permission slip signed by my wife.
Projects
I am currently assisting in two areas, within the lab. The first area is trouble-shooting PCR protocol for tardegrades, while the other is assisting the gathering tradegrades and mounting them on slides or collecting them in alcohol to be sent off for further analyses.
I also do other research in the field of phylogenetics with Dr. D. Rogers. My main project is with a genus of rat known as the giant-pouched rat, Cricetomys. This rat is a carrier of the monkeypox virus, similar to smallpox virus, and our research is directed towards defining species-level taxa for Cricetomys and to identify which species are the carriers of the virus. Other minor projects that I conduct research in include the orders of Neotinomae and Oryzomy.