When I was 18 years old, I walked into the orchestra room at my high school and saw a sparkling new harp sitting in a corner. It turns out the school had just purchased the harp. Well, I fell in love instantly and was taking lessons within a week.  I became a piano major at the Indiana University School of Music and continued to study harp with Peter Eagle and Susann McDonald alongside my piano studies.  When I graduated IU I continued classical harp studies with Suzanne Balderston at The Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, California, then migrated south to California State University at Los Angeles, where I studied jazz harp with Dr. Caroll McLaughlin.  When I moved back to Indiana, I spent two years studying jazz composition and arranging with David Baker of Indiana University Jazz Studies Department.