I received by B.S. in Economics from Binghamton University in Binghamton, New York in 1991, and my Ph.D. in Economics from Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana in 1995. I joined Holy Cross immediately after finishing graduate school, in August 2005. I went to school through 9th grade in Chester, New York, and high school in Pine Bush, New York.
I was born in Washington D.C. My parents would see Miles Davis in jazz clubs when I was in utero and started calling me "little Miles" as a joke...and the name stuck. At 6 weeks old, my parents moved to Potiskum, Nigeria, west Africa, where my Dad taught high school for about 3 years. My Dad had earlier served in the Peace Corps in Niger, and loved it. As a result, my early childhood was a bit different than the average American kid's...After about 3 years, we moved back to the U.S., and I quickly forgot all the Hausa I learned.
| My main hobbies are running, hiking, music and cooking. Running has become my main passion, and I can often been seen running near campus around lunch time. I completed a marathon in 2009, but prefer shorter distances. I hike whenever I can and have climbed the 4000 foot peaks in the White Mountains, my favorite place to hike. My music interests are very wide, from jazz (especially hard-bop from the 1950s), to bluegrass (a current favorite is Crooked Still), to classical (especially Bach solo instruments), to rock (Mark Knopfler is probably my current favorite), to ska, to folk.....on and on. My favorite sport to watch is baseball. I am a lapsed Mets fan, and was fully initiated as a Red Sox fan when I watched them lose to the Yankees in the 2003 playoffs. I told my weeks-old son, "Sean, there's something you have to know now. The Red Sox will never, ever win the World Series," only (to my delight) to be proven wrong a year later. I have always been a Yankees detractor, partly because Red Sox fans go back several generations on my Mom's side. I also like college basketball and football, where I always root for my Purdue Boilermakers. |  |
 |
I am blessed with two kids, Sara (born in Sept. 2000) and Sean (born in Sept. 2004), who are the lights of my life. Sara loves soccer, doing crafts, acting, and cooking - she can make bake most things from scratch! Sean isn't too far behind on cooking, plays soccer and loves playing games. (Image on left is of them in July 2009.) My wife Kim died in January 2007 after a heroic battle with biliary cancer. I am grateful for every moment I had with her. |
We enjoy traveling, especially to National Parks, and other nature-based destinations (though the kids slowed us down in recent years!). Some of our favorite vacations were to Bryce, Zion, and the Grand Canyon; the Pacific Northwest; Lake Tahoe area and Yosemite; London and southern England; areas around Utrecht and Amsterdam (the Netherlands), Heidelberg (Germany), and Brugges (Belgium). Our favorite spot was Acadia National Park in "downeast" Maine. The background picture on my this page is of The Bubbles in Acadia. We go there every year.