Michelle Abriani:  

Life In Feb. 1999, married Matt Abriani from Indianapolis (also has a lot of family in Clinton)...had our son Jacob (Alexander Primo Abriani) in Feb. 2000, and our daughter Kaylie (Elizabeth Rose Abriani) in September 2001. I went back to school in May of 2002 at ISU to finally get my degree...started out in accounting (thought it would be good money...hated it), and by November I had switched to Geology (you would be surprised how much there is know about rocks and the Earth...). While working on my degree, I focused on oceanography and did research on microscopic creatures called foraminifera that live in all the oceans...the ones I worked on were collected from the seafloor in submarine canyons off the southwest coast of Australia. I was a participant on oceanographic research cruises off San Diego and south of Alaska's Aleutian Islands (we spent several days before and after being at sea in Dutch Harbor where they film the Discovery Channel's 'Deadliest Catch' series). I also went on numerous field trips to many national parks and places of geologic interest, with the highlight being a 6-week field camp in the summer of 2005 spent in the Black Hills of South Dakota, and Yellowstone National Park and the Grand Tetons in Wyoming (ask me about the fun stuff I did with rattlesnakes, mountain lions, and grizzlies). I finished my B.S. in 2005 and applied to go to school for my PhD in geology/oceanography. I was accepted at Scripps Institution of Oceanography near San Diego, University of California Santa Cruz, University of California Davis, and Oregon State University in Corvallis...I chose UC Davis due to better job opportunities for Matt and also it had a more family friendly atmosphere. I moved to Davis in August 2005 with Jacob so he could start kindergarten - I drove the 26 foot moving truck across country on I-80 while towing the car...Matt and Kaylie stayed behind in Indiana until he could get a job in...Expand for more