My background is in ecology, entomology, spiders, and many years as an Ecologist/Data Manager in the U.S. federal govt.

I was lucky enough to be a student of Dr. Bob Snetsinger at Penn State in the 1970s where I learned about the purse-web spider Atypus snetsingeri that was described from my hometown neighborhood of Upper Darby, PA. I've been casually locating purse-webs in southeastern PA for decades, and since 2015 I've turned that hobby into a real project (see the MapTheSpider.com website).

Recently I coauthored on a paper that unmasks A. snetsingeri as an introduced species from Asia, Atypus karschi. It is still a very cool spider, and the mapping project has taken on more significance.