Hello, welcome to Jon E’s W&L website! From July 2024 – June 2027, I will be a Senior Research Fellow in Medical and Health Sciences at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. There, I will be conducting research with an international consortium of surgeons, clinicians, physicists and engineers. Our collective aim is to apply our novel biomedical tools to open new treatment pathways and improve the standard of care for patients suffering from a variety of gastrointestinal disorders. 

For the past 15 years (2009-2014), I have had the honor and privilege – really, just a grand time  – teaching outstanding, curious, and enthusiastic W&L students. Actually, I learn a lot from them!  My lab (the “Colon Crew”) performs research at the intersection of physics, medicine, and biology. We make new biomedical tools to non-invasively study gastrointestinal motility patterns.  I serve as faculty adviser for the W&L Engineering Community Development club. We work with local and international partners developing small civil infrastructure projects (water filters, small bridges). For a quick summary of my professional life, here is my CV. For fun, I love to play outside: hiking, trail running, biking, climbing, and trying to keep up with two energetic kiddos. 

So, how did I end up becoming a professor at W&L?  I have always loved math and science, and I still love learning new things.   But my academic path was sinuous.  I switched  undergraduate majors once, and PhD tracks twice.  In retrospect, the recipe was pretty simple:  I  found topics and projects that really ignited my curiosity and passion to apply science for the public good, took a chance on them, and have worked hard chipping away at them.  This same ethos, along with the desire to always learn and grow in new ways, is what leads me to pursue a 3 year research fellowship across the globe.  Moral of the story: I don’t think anyone really needs a long-term plan.  Find what you love,  invest yourself in it, build community and hopefully make the world a slightly better place in doing so.