Born and raised in the rural reaches of Trinidad, I grew up with varied interests and a strong appreciation for much of what is today taken for granted. I recall my childhood days with a fondness that is only now realized as an adult, and now with time and distance, I have grown to fully appreciate the many hardships my family has endured.

When I left for the US in 1990, I was a naïve eighteen year old awash in a plethora of mixed emotions. I struggled valiantly to predict how life at home would change without me. I debated with my friends the then-profound concept of diverging lives, and how our high school, Presentation College, no longer could afford us the shelter to which we had grown so accustomed over the seven or so odd years we had invested there. Most of all, I was excited to enter into a new phase of my life. I wondered if the University of Pennsylvania would embrace me as warmly as I was eager to become part of it, and perhaps more importantly, if I would embrace it as my new home.
     Graduation in May of 1995 saw me with my Bachelor's degree from the School of Engineering and Applied Science; by the end of my undergraduate tenure, I had decided upon an Environmental Systems concentration from the Systems Engineering department. From there--and with much encouragement from my faculty advisors--I plunged straight into the PhD program at the same department, and continued on. However, several semesters into my graduate work, I became disillusioned with what I was doing and left with my Master's degree in December 1996. I was ready to try something new; I was ready to enter The Real World.
     With nothing more than an introductory freshman course in basic Economics under my belt, it was understandably with much trepidation that I accepted an offer that Wall Street had offered me at the end of 1996. Three months later, and for the second time in my life, I packed my worldy belongings and moved to New York, my emotions checked at the door and a strong sense of an adventurous unkown ahead of me.
     It's been several years since I made that decision in 1996, and I've since settled comfortably in New York. It's a wonderful place, a place where I feel as at home as I've felt anywhere. For now, I guess I'll make it my home.

As I envision the future, I am filled with a comforting sense of déjà vu and homecoming... I look forward with much anticipation to the new challenges that await me, and I eagerly embrace the chapters of my life as they unfold.