Professor Jarrod Hayes joins the Hayseed Scholar podcast. Jarrod was born in Colorado, but moved to Utah at a young age and grew up there for a bit before relocating with his mother to just outside of Atlanta, Georgia. In high school, he found he enjoyed doing research especially with science and technology, and so he went to the University of Colorado to pursue a degree in Astrophysics. But at Colorado he also enjoyed studying International Relations because it seemed to cover the ‘big things’ he had long enjoyed thinking about (a la Carl Sagan).

He would get a PhD at USC, working with Pat James, and realized at an ISA meeting that he wanted to divert from going into the government and foreign service to instead pursue a career in academia. Jarrod talks about his time at OU in Norman, then moving back to Atlanta and a job at Georgia Tech where he got promoted and tenured. He and his wife Professor Janelle Knox-Hayes would end up in Cambridge where they are today with their beloved daughters and dog.

Jarrod concludes the show by discussing with Brent his love of weightlifting, hobbies with his daughters, how he approaches writing, and what it has been like for him and Professor Knox-Hayes to be the Heads of a Residence House, Burton Conner, at MIT.