Andrew
A dashing computer scientist by day, serial hobbyist by night, Andrew was born in Long Island, but moved to the charming college town environs of Bloomington, Indiana at an early age. Raised in this lovely Midwestern city by John and Sarah Davenport, and accompanied by his older brother, Greg, Andrew grew into a thoughtful, curious, intellectually precocious young man. As a requisite part of being a youth in Indiana, Andrew’s first job involved detasseling corn, although he later graduated to stints at the public library and a Christian bookstore. Andrew was very involved in Scouts from an early age, eventually earning the distinction of Eagle Scout when he was in high school. The skills he learned from Scouts continue to be incredibly useful for many real life tasks, such as making Tonkas, which are tasty campfire treats that consist of bread surrounding a yummy filling, all toasted to golden brown deliciousness over the fire.
Beginning his love for hobbies at a young age, Andrew was interested in understanding how things worked, and took a particular interest in computers. This fascination ultimately led him to pursue a B.S. in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University, with a Minor in Business Administration. His streak of unique jobs continued, first with a position at the Heinz Archive, copying documents onto archival paper. Later, Andrew worked as a consultant and manager in Carnegie Mellon’s computing clusters. Following college and several internships in exciting locales, such as Santa Clara, California and Minneapolis, Minnesota, Andrew accepted a job with Hewlett Packard in Massachusetts as a software engineer. After a few years, Hewlett Packard spun off a new entity, Agilent, and soon after, Philips acquired Agilent’s medical imaging program, as well as all of Andrew’s expertise and ingeniousness (they didn’t know what a great deal they were getting!!). A dozen years later or so, Andrew continues to work as a software engineer in the Ultrasound Division, where he writes software for quantification of cardiac ultrasounds.
Outside of work, Andrew has engaged in entertaining hobbies, such as taking flight lessons, operating ham radio, renovating a basement, serving as a Church Treasurer, participating in various singing and musical groups, and taking violin lessons. He has enrolled in numerous classes at various universities in the area, and has taken photographs throughout New England and on trips to places like France and Italy. In addition to working full time, Andrew is now pursuing a Master’s degree through Harvard University in Information Technology, with a concentration in Math and Computation. This means that he takes classes with impressive sounding titles, like “Bioinformatic Algorithms” and “Multivariable Calculus.” Andrew also enjoys running, playing the guitar, eating (exceptionally!) spicy foods, and being outside, especially when it involves exploring new places to take photos.
Kathleen
Adventuresome and curious from her earliest days, Kathleen was born in Ogden, Utah to Howard and Eugenia. Kathleen spent the first two years of her life in the breathtaking mountain surroundings of Ogden, but then moved to the slightly less mountainous region of Champaign-Urbana, Illinois. Following three years of snow, tornadoes, corn, and more snow in Illinois, Kathleen and her parents moved to Austin, Texas, where they would live for nearly 11 years (and would experience many, many more tornadoes). During this time, Kathleen became very involved in playing tennis and would trek all around the great state of Texas to participate in junior tournaments, which afforded her the opportunity to visit such exotic locales as Kerrville and Brownsville, Texas. While living in Texas, Kathleen first got the bug for international travel when she spent the majority of the summer after her freshman year of High School in the Ivory Coast in West Africa. While there, she lived with a missionary family and visited various regions of this beautiful country, and she fell in love with international travel, exploration, and meeting people from all over the world.
When Kathleen was 16, her family moved to the Columbus, Ohio region, and she became very involved in the technical theater and yearbook programs at her new school, eventually becoming a stage manager for a play and editor-in-chief of the yearbook. Prior to her senior year, the travel bug hit again, and Kathleen spent the summer living in gorgeous Switzerland, which she still contends is the most physically beautiful country on earth. This opinion, of course, was in no way influenced by the ready availability of fine Swiss chocolate and cheese during her stay in the country. After graduating from High School, Kathleen spent her first year of college back in Texas, in Forth Worth, at TCU, but then transferred to Boston College starting in her sophomore year. At BC, she majored in Psychology and minored in International Studies, the latter of which led her to study abroad in Paris during the Spring semester of her Junior year. When she wasn’t traveling around Europe on a Eurail pass, wandering through quaint cobblestone streets, climbing 16th century church steeples, or skydiving over the Swiss Alps, Kathleen managed to fit in classes on French art, European contemporary affairs, and French grammar and phonetics. Somehow, Kathleen dragged herself back to the States and graduated with her B.A. the next year.
Following college, Kathleen worked for a year at The Ohio State University Medical Center, before heading West to San Diego to pursue a doctoral degree. After five years of studying neuroscience, psychology, and neurology (and taking some great conference-related trips to exotic places like Australia and Greece), Kathleen decided to take a chance on the world outside academia and moved to Boston to begin her first professional job as a consultant in the legal industry. After six months of working full-time and finishing a dissertation during her nights and weekends, Kathleen officially defended her dissertation and became a doctor (but not the kind that helps people) at the end of 2011. Since then, Kathleen has been relishing the concept of “free time” and has even read quite a few books for fun since she completed her degree! Now that she has some spare time, Kathleen also enjoys running, taking photographs, traveling (in case that wasn’t obvious by now), and spending time exploring New England.