Bio

I was born on the island of Jamaica and grew up in the town of Savanna-La-Mar in the parish of Westmoreland. I came to the United States at the age of 14 and completed High School at Salesian High in New Rochelle, NY. I received a B.S. in Biology from Virginia Union University (VUU) in 2000. I fell in love with science as an undergraduate student researcher in the laboratory of Dr. Anthony Madu at VUU where I performed research aimed at identifying pathogenic bacteria from fresh farm produce. I completed my PhD in the department of Plant Biology and Pathology in 2006 under the direction of Dr. Thomas Leustek at Rutgers University.

I joined the faculty in the Thomas H. Gosnell School of Life Sciences in the Fall of 2008 following a post-doctoral fellowship at Rutgers. I am a member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. (Gamma Chapter-VUU Spring 1998). I love music (authentic reggae-Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, Burning Spear etc.), reading (autobiographies), chess and sports (football-Bills), (soccer-Brazil), (baseball-Yankees), (basketball-Knicks). I reside in Hilton New York with my wife Candice who teaches English as a New Language (ENL) at Northwood Elementary in Hilton, NY, my son Michael (17) and dog Ziggy Smalls (Shih Tzu).