College/University #1
	Name [INDIANA UNIV BLOOMINGTON]	City [BLOOMINGTON]	U.S. State [(IN) IN]

Major field of study	Other (specify)	Start Date (mm/yyyy)	End Date (mm/yyyy)	Degree or diploma	Date degree awarded/expected
[microbiology]	[]	[09-2000]	[05-2003]	[Bachelor of Science (SB) ]	[05-2003]
Second major field of study	Additional degree or diploma
[---]	[---]

Please describe the grading system used at this college/university. Explain the specific meaning of any numeric values, letter grades, and rankings. [A = 4.0; A- = 3.7; B+ = 3.3; T = test; W = withdrawn/passing; S = satisfactory] Cumulative GPA as listed on your transcript:[3.728]

List language of instruction in: Primary school: [---] Secondary school: [Spanish (SPA) ] University: [Japanese (JPN) ] Graduate school: [---]
If you need more space than is provided in the fields below, please use the field for additional information and comments on page 9.

Your honors, prizes, or major publications:
[ACS Scholarship Exam, Honorable Mention]

[National Spanish Test, fourth place] Your extracurricular activities and accomplishments:
[eating heathy yummy food! and sharing it with others]

[not having a paying job for five solid years] Your teaching or professional experience including summer and term-time work. Give name of employer, dates, and nature of work:
[2002-2003 summer research project in Jeffrey Palmer's molecular phylogeny lab]

[2007 web/unix system administrator and consultant, Datarealm (www.serve.com)] Other experience, including military, volunteer work, travel. Give dates and nature of work:
[05-07 software developer with Enhanced Machine Controller project (linuxcnc.org)]

[700+ mile bicycle journey]

Record of Courses Taken in Preparation for Graduate Study

Please list below the courses you have taken that are most relevant to this graduate program. Group courses by subject area, for example, group all math courses together and group all sciences courses together, etc. Use the next section, if you need more room.

Course no.	Course name	Principal textbook used (author and title)	Academic year in which course was taken	Official course grade
[math-m303]	[linear algebra]	[---]	[2001]	[A]
[biol-m435]	[viral tissue culture lab]	[---]	[2002]	[A]
[biol-m250]	[microbiology]	[---]	[2002]	[A-]
[biol-m485]	[molecular genetics lab]	[---]	[2002]	[A]
[biol-l321]	[principles of immunology]	[---]	[2003]	[A-]
[biol-m360]	[microbial physiology & biochemistry lab]	[---]	[2003]	[B+]
[math-k310]	[statistics]	[---]	[2003]	[A]
[hpsc-x200]	[scientific reasoning]	[---]	[2001]	[A]
[chem-c126]	[experimental chemistry 2]	[---]	[2000]	[A-]
[chem-c341]	[organic chemistry (honors)]	[francis carey]	[2001]	[A-]
[phys-p202]	[physics 2]	[---]	[2000]	[A]
[biol-l211]	[molecular biology]	[---]	[2000]	[B]
[biol-l490]	[individual study (molecular phylogeny lab)]	[---]	[2002]	[B+]
[---]	[---]	[---]	[---]	[---]
[---]	[---]	[---]	[---]	[---]
[---]	[---]	[---]	[---]	[---]
[---]	[---]	[---]	[---]	[---]
[---]	[---]	[---]	[---]	[---]
[---]	[---]	[---]	[---]	[---]
[---]	[---]	[---]	[---]	[---]
Please list below all other college and university courses you have taken. Group courses by subject area (science, math, engineering, humanities, social sciences, etc.). You may also use this section for any courses that you could not fit in the section above.
Course no.	Course name	Principal textbook used (author and title)	Academic year in which course was taken	Official course grade
[biol-l113]	[biology laboratory]	[---]	[2000]	[B+]
[coas-e103]	[images: japan]	[---]	[2000]	[A-]
[ealc-j101]	[japanese language 1]	[makino, hatasa: nakama 1]	[2000]	[A]
[hper-e127]	[fencing]	[---]	[2000]	[A+]
[csci-a290]	[intro to lego robotics]	[---]	[2001]	[A]
[chem-c106]	[principles of chemistry 2]	[---]	[2001]	[A-]
[coas-e104]	[japan's economic miracle]	[---]	[2001]	[A]
[ealc-j202]	[japanese language 2]	[makino, hatasa: nakama 1]	[2001]	[A]
[hper-e227]	[intermediate fencing]	[---]	[2001]	[A]
[ealc-j201]	[second year japanese 1]	[makino, hatasa: nakama 2]	[2001]	[A]
[llc-q199]	[collins living learning center workshop]	[---]	[2001]	[A]
[biol-m255]	[microbiology lab]	[---]	[2002]	[B+]
[biol-m430]	[virology lecture]	[---]	[2002]	[A]
[ealc-j202]	[second year japanese 2]	[makino, hatasa: nakama 2]	[2002]	[A]
[biol-m460]	[biology of the prokaryotes]	[---]	[2002]	[A]
[biol-m465]	[biology of the prokaryotes lab]	[---]	[2002]	[B]
[biol-m480]	[microbial and molecular genetics]	[---]	[2002]	[A]
[chem-c342]	[organic chemistry lectures 2]	[---]	[2002]	[W]
[coas-w333]	[intensive writing]	[---]	[2002]	[S]
[ealc-j301]	[third year japanese 1]	[---]	[2002]	[W]
[biol-m350]	[microbial physiology & biochemistry]	[---]	[2003]	[B]
[chem-c343]	[organic chemistry lab]	[---]	[2003]	[B]
[---]	[---]	[---]	[---]	[---]
[---]	[---]	[---]	[---]	[---]

Statement of Objectives

Please give your reasons for wishing to do graduate work in the field you have chosen. Prepare your statement of objectives and goals in whatever form clearly presents your views. Include as far as you can, your particular interests, be they experimental, theoretical, or issue-oriented, and show how your background and MIT's programs support these interests. The statement could be much like a proposal for graduate studies, in the more specific context of your professional objectives. You should set forth the issues and problems you wish to address. Explain your longer-term professional goals. The Admissions Committee will welcome any factors you wish to bring to its attention concerning your academic and work experience to date. [Somewhere along the way I realized that humanity can't keep growing indefinitely on the surface of planet Earth without changing our ways, and perhaps even our selves. Even though technology is about "doing more with less", and advances in ephemeralization will eventually approach doing everything with nothing at all, (or at least a basic kit of free components,) there will be endless hardship and poverty as long as we remain rooted in the archaic mindset of material and intellectual scarcity. Most people think there simply isn't enough to go around, and perhaps there isn't, since we use resources so wastefully and lock away the best ideas in journals and patents. But it doesn't have to be this way. We can show them how to do things better. We can share our innovations and observations, and do it in a way that enables everday people to use them, complete with algorithms to find the shortest path to make something from what is at hand. We can give them a seed, and an idea: tools to make tools to make tools! Where does it all end? Who says it has to end? I can see thriving O'neill colonies in an ever expanding series of orbits throughout the solar system, linked by a highway system of rotating tethers for quick reaction-mass-free passenger transport and beams of neutral plasma for matter exchange, and powered by essentially unlimited solar energy. The challenge is getting from here to there. And here is where I need your help, and you need mine. You see, no university has the research capacity or the focus needed to build an entire spacefaring civilization, and no government mandate exists that will ever be able to fund such an undertaking. But there exist hundreds of thousands of enthusiastic engineers all around the world that would help, if you just gave them a place, a system to cooperate. This system has to start small, and it must work with normal everyday objects in order to gain acceptance among normal everyday people. It has to be fun to use, easy to learn, and come pre-stocked with lots of useful programs and devices. It has to be able to duplicate itself and be modified to overcome problems. It has to transcend patent boundaries, hardware faults, and everyday human bickering. This all points towards a distributed open-source system. I have already started work on such a system, including both the distributed social software, and also the hardware "seed": high performance yet lightweight and compact machine tools. MIT's FabLab program has achieved an outstanding reputation in the media for encouraging innovation and empowering individuals. But is it really effective on a large scale? The economics simply don't make sense. Tools that cost tens of thousands of dollars are being used to make items that can be bought or contracted out to job shops for tens of dollars. In order to be an effective agent of change, the FabLabs must eschew expensive proprietary tools and software. The tools are large and heavy, use strange and hard to obtain components for repair and maintenance, and often require extensive training because there is no "foolproofing". Someone will have to "distill" all of these tools down into a minimal kit that can be derived from local sources, in a manner similar to the RepRap project but with a wider range of processes and materials. This is a large undertaking; more than a proof of concept, it must actually work well. You need all the help you can get, whether from highly trained in-house students or from the clamoring hordes of groupies on the net. So here I am, just another guy with a vision and some aptitude, fumbling around and wondering if anyone will take notice.]

Research Areas

Please mark numerically, in order of preference, your top three research group* choices:

[2]High-Low Tech (Buechley)
[1]Physics and Media (Gershenfeld)
[3]Molecular Machines (Jacobson)

*For more information regarding our research groups, please refer to www.media.mit.edu/research.