As a child, I was interested in becoming a baseball general manager (GM), the person responsible for trading and drafting baseball players.
This desire changed while in high school, where I decided law school would be a more practical idea. After high school I embarked to Syracuse University (SU), where I majored in English literature with the rationale that writing skills would be essential in my development as a lawyer. I graduated from SU in 1994 and began law school at Loyola University (New Orleans, LA) in 1996.
Three months later, I quit law school (why do we need the legal system if everyone tells the truth?) and moved to Arizona in 1996 to pursue my childhood dream of becoming a baseball GM. However, after 2 interviews for a $5/hour entry level job with the Arizona Diamondbacks I remained unemployed.
Jobless and without a clue of what I would do with my life, I enlisted in the US Navy in 1997. At the 6 month mark of my enlistment, I applied to become an officer. Approximately 1 year later, my officer application was rejected, after which I complained my way up the chain of command, leading to an honorable discharge after only 13 months of service.
It was now 1998, and I had no choice but to move back home with my parents. I have always been interested in health and fitness, so my mom recommended becoming a personal trainer. I became certified as a personal trainer through three organizations-ACSM, NSCA (CSCS), and NASM, and worked for 3 years in this profession. It was during this time that I realized I needed to go deeper into the biochemistry underlying health and fitness. In addition, I read a book by Roy Walford entitled, “Beyond the 120 Year Diet”, which discussed the science underlying longevity.
It was with this interest in biochemistry, health, fitness and aging that I enrolled in Queens College (NY) in 2000, with the goal of obtaining a second Bachelor’s degree, in Biochemistry, which would allow me to also take the next step of attending a graduate school that specialized in aging research. In the spring of 2003 I earned a B.A. in Biochemistry, and, in the fall, I began graduate school at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio.
In 2009, I earned a PhD in Physiology and in the process, learned a great deal about the biochemistry underlying the aging process.
However, I remained interested in studying athletic performance, so in 2010 I joined a lab at Tufts University (Boston, MA) that studies the biochemistry underlying body composition, athletic performance and markers of muscle overuse/injury.
As you can see, I’ve had a circuitous path in becoming a scientist, but I wouldn’t trade this journey for any other!