My main professional focus is to bring the excitement of science to the wider world, and to help people everywhere to make better decisions through empirical data analysis. I love the thought that great knowledge and wisdom lies hidden in plain sight, if only we have the skill and patience to really look.

I am the Associate Director for Education of the Institute for Data-Intensive Engineering and Science (IDIES) at Johns Hopkins University, a university-wide initiative to develop new approaches to understanding huge scientific datasets, with data sizes measured in Terabytes or Petabytes. My primary role is to develop training and education programs for SciServer (www.sciserver.org), a project funded by the National Science Foundation to develop online tools for collaborative data analysis and scientific publication.

I am also the Communications Director and Press Officer for the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, an ongoing project to make a map of the Universe. I write releases and coordinate press coverage announcing exciting discoveries from our own solar system to the farthest reaches of the Universe.