My interest in livebearers dates back to when I watched a female guppy drop a brood in the 5 gallon tank I got for my 6th birthday. I joined the Pittsburgh club (GPASI) in 1980 at the age of 9 and shortly thereafter wrote the first of what would turn out to be dozens of articles on livebearers. 
After getting my undergrad degree at Harvard I went on to the University of Texas to do my PhD on Mexican swordtails, supported in part by a Vern Parish Fund Award from ALA which I was honored to accept at the 1999 convention in Ohio. Mexican poeciliids have been my main research focus ever since, through faculty appointments at Boston University, Texas A&M University, and now at the University of Padova, Italy. In 2005 my wife Rhonda Struminger and I co-founded the CICHAZ field station in the Sierra Madre Oriental of central Mexico, where I continue to work with students, colleagues, and local collaborators on Xiphophorus hybrids. Now that livebearers are my work and not my hobby, I enjoy hiking, cooking, and eating.
 
Programs:
“Natural Hybridization & Mate Choice in Xiphophorus of Mexico’s Sierra Madre Oriental”
 
Convention 2007
Convention 2022