Biography
Who am I? Well, that's a tough question. Here's a quick attempt to outline some of the big events in my life thus far...
I was born on May 1, 1977 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. My parents are
Neil and Nancy Steffl, and I have a younger (by 3 years) sister named
Katie. I had a wonderful childhood growing up in Brooklyn Park,
Minnesota filled with happy memories. Eventually, I went to Park Center
High School and graduated in May 1995.
For the next four years I attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison
where I double-majored in astronomy and physics. In my sophomore year,
I met my future wife, Carolyn Herb, who lived in the same dorm as me.
We started dating a year later. Also in my sophomore year, I started
working as an undergraduate research assistant for Prof. Frank Scherb
in the Physics department. It was a great job that gave me the
opportunity to machine astronomical instrumentation, spend a total of
six weeks observing at Kitt Peak National Observatory, and analyze real
data. Professor Scherb also introduced me to Jupiter's moon, Io, and
the Io plasma torus.
Carolyn and I both finished our B.S. degrees in May of 1999. Attempting
to delay having to get a "real" job as long as possible, we both
decided to go to grad school. As it turned out, the University of
Colorado at Boulder happened to be the only school in the country that
had strong graduate programs in both planetary science and
environmental law. The opportunity to live in a place as beautiful as
Colorado was an added bonus. So, in August of 1999, we moved to
Boulder, Colorado, and we've been living in and around Boulder ever
since.
Grad school. What can I say, it's a rather intense experience whereby
you jump through various hoops in order to get your Ph.D. which will
allow you to keep working in a field that you (hopefully still) love,
all the while getting paid very little. Along the way, I got my
Master's degree in Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences in May 2002,
and got married in August 2002. Finally, after spending the previous
six months chained to my computer, I finished my Ph.D. thesis entitled
"The Io Plasma Torus During the Cassini Encounter with Jupiter:
Temporal, Radial and Azimuthal Variations" (note the deft usage of a
colon in the title), and successfully defended it in April of 2005.
I'm now working as a Research Scientist at the Department of Space Studies at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder.