I’ve come via a winding road. I graduated with a BSc in physics from MIT in 1986 and taught high school physics for 5 years (in California and the Fiji Islands) before earning a PhD from Princeton in Astrophysical Sciences: studying two years of fusion technologies and five years of molecular order on surfaces launching me into 5 years of nanotechnology study, before realizing my heart was in sustainability and that I find human systems more interesting than molecular order. Since 2000, I’ve been in the Cal Poly Physics Department in San Luis Obispo, California, specializing in sustainability and collaborative poverty mitigation; developing and directing a number of dedicated courses. Increasingly, my interests bring me to Africa. I am here this year on a Fulbright Scholarship in a joint assignment with Renewable Energy and Physics, in what I anticipate is the beginning of collaboration lasting the remainder of my professional career – which I don’t expect to end any time soon.