People are always asking me where I'm from. And I always tell them that it's a long story. I'll try to keep this version brief.
I was born in Denton, Texas, and when I was only six months old we all packed up to move to Japan. Dad was a fresh Air Force officer, which made me an Air Force brat. I was just old enough to figure out a little about where I was when we moved back to the States. I was three and a half, it was 1967, and we were Maguire Air Force Base in New Jersey. A year later my dad got out of the Air Force and we moved to Monticello, Arkansas, a small town in the southeast part of the state. Even though Monticello had a small university there, it was not the most open-minded town I've ever lived in. My dad worked as advertising manager for the local paper, my mom taught school, and my brother and I did our best to fit in while growing up.
When I was almost 13, we started a series of moves that eventually led to my dad's managing a newspaper in Yazoo City, Mississippi. I lived a year each in Baton Rouge and Jennings, Louisiana, and Dunedin, Florida. I spent my junior and senior years of high school in Yazoo City, which turned out to be a great little town. I really liked the folks I went to school with there, and I got enough honors and awards that by the time I graduated, I was, well, just a teeny bit overconfident.
I went to college at Northwestern (near Chicago), where they quickly taught me some humility. I graduated in 1985 and started graduate work at the University of Wyoming. I thorougly enjoyed the seven years I spent in Laramie.
I earned my Ph.D. in 1992, and for the next decade, I lived the life of a science mercenary, moving every couple of years. For my first post-doc, I spent two years in the Boston area at what used to be the Air Force Geophysics Lab. (AFGL). Then, it was three years at NASA Ames in the San Francisco Bay Area, a year and a half in Australia as an International Research Fellow in Canberra (and Armidale), and then a year and half teaching physics at Virginia Tech. while my wife finished her Ph.D. Once she was done, I returned to Boston for another year at the old AFGL.
Since July, 2001 we have lived in Ithaca, New York where we both have jobs at Cornell. Whew!
So, basically, I'm a Southerner. More or less.
Home
Personal Page
Last modified 14 March, 2009. © Gregory C. Sloan.