As far back as I can remember, I wanted to be a doctor. I have always been fascinated with biology and motivated by a desire to help people. Being a non-traditional student, the path I took to medical school was not a direct one. But I feel that my life experiences have helped me to be a more mature and well-rounded individual. For the 10 years prior to medical school, I completed a Ph.D. in Computer Science, was awarded a few research grants, taught at the college level, and worked as a Software Engineer. While considering post-doctoral opportunities, it became very clear that my primary desire in life was to be a physician. I took time to work out the details with my wife and children. We concluded that academics, finances, and family responsibilities were not limiting factors, and I began to focus on becoming a doctor.

Academics
I attended medical school at George Washington University. I hold a B.S. in Microbiology from the University of Maryland College Park and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Maryland Baltimore County. My research interests include medical informatics, data management, human computer interaction, and software safety. My research focus has been to develop new modalities that tightly couple computers to the essential processes of patient care. My dissertation extended the theory of perceptual structures to multimodal speech recognition interfaces for clinical data collection. Before attending medical school, I was an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Computer Science at the University of Maryland Baltimore County.

Work Experience 
I have been the Principal Investigator one million dollars in research grants sponsored by the National Cancer Institute, the National Center for Research Resources, and the Advanced Research Projects Agency. I have been the author or guest editor on several publications in computer science, medical informatics, and medicine. Before medical school, I worked for Segue Biomedical Computing, a company I co-founded.

Volunteer Activities 
I have several years of clinical experience in community health, working with underserved populations, and on children's health issues as a volunteer for the Howard County Board of Health, the St. Agnes Hospital Community Care Center, and the Howard County 'Not My Kid' Campaign. I have had other clinical experiences such as job shadowing a number of physicians and working in the Emergency Department of Howard County Hospital. I also volunteered for several community organizations and received the Charles E. Miller award for Howard County Volunteer of the Year.