Why are things the way they are? How do the rules which govern systems manifest themselves? How do they interact? Which properties are preserved in the face of change? Which are merely contingent?

There are few domains that don’t yield interesting answers to these questions, which means my interests tend to drag me all over the map. Evolutionary biology, machine learning, team sports, and the mechanics of storytelling are just a few of the fields that have caught my attention at one point or another.

Fortunately, the toolkit we use to interrogate these domains is universal. There’s no better feeling than digging into the structure of what seem to be wildly different disciplines to find out that they’re trying to solve the same question from different perspectives.

And that’s the cool thing about curiosity. It doesn’t just reward you with texture, delightful as that texture might be. Sometimes it yields a surprising answer. Or — even better — a surprising journey.

Training

While studying engineering at Cambridge, I stayed true to form, never quite settling on a particular discipline. Eventually I honed in on the intersection between structural and biological engineering — my masters project, Modelling Spinal Disc Failure, used novel techniques to simulate viscoelastic (i.e. squishy), nonlinear (i.e. annoying) tissue. I have done my best to continue my education since my student days, and am currently re-exploring much of the mathematics I learned as an undergraduate.

Thanks to my time as a search and rescue volunteer in Seattle, I also have extensive training and practical experience in wilderness survival, navigation, first aid, and crisis response. Operating under genuine life-and-death stress has had a profound impact on how I handle responsibility in difficult circumstances elsewhere. It also means I own an inordinate number of spare batteries.

Work

Most of my career has been spent in various roles across Vox Media’s sports and tech brands. I’ve been a soccer writer with thousands of bylines, a features editor, a full-stack developer and an editor-in-chief. I’ve co-founded video brands, collaborated on ambitious narrative projects like 17776: An American Football Story, and worked with many young writers to hone their voices and craft.

Before I found out that people would pay me to write about sports, I worked as a structural engineer in Seattle, where I was responsible for the primary earthquake defence systems on projects like Amazon’s South Lake Union headquarters and the Hope Wing of Seattle Children’s Hospital.

It’s been a journey of twists and turns, and those twists have been by and large complementary. Taking my engineering expertise into sports led directly to major contributions in football analytics  — I wrote the first public expected goals model in 2011 — while my newsroom experience gives me an understanding of storytelling and time pressure which is vital in front-end narrative work.

Above all, it’s worthwhile to sit at intersections. They’re where the most interesting ideas percolate and the most compelling work gets done. Yes, operating between groups is useful, but that’s not really the point: a one-note career just doesn’t sound as fun as playing in chords

Should you for any reason require a more traditional CV (dates, titles, skills etc.) please see here.