Noah Van Dam landed at St Andrews a little over a year ago. In that time, he has become an integral part of our fabric. He sings in our choir, he’s active in worship, and I think I even saw him grill some brats at Church Fest.

(Noah’s thesis)

Noah was born into an Episcopalian family in New Jersey. They moved around a lot, so he has lived in number of places including: Raleigh, Orlando, Des Moines (his parents still live there), Madison (where he earned his PhD in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Wisconsin), and of course Downers Grove. He’s here because of his job. He’s doing post-doctoral research at Argonne National Laboratory. This includes a project for the Department of Energy on combustion and fuel flow to help create more fuel-efficient engines (that’s a photographer’s lame interpretation of what he does).

(Homemade granola)

When he isn’t singing for us on Sunday, or working on more fuel-efficient transportation for the nation, he likes to cook, play ultimate Frisbee, and he’s thinking about training for a triathlon, all of this done from a deeply Christian perspective. He’s really a renaissance man, although the renaissance would have to have had BBQ, Frisbees, cars, computers, and a bunch of other stuff they didn’t have. So we’ll just have to call him an Episcopalian. Thanks for everything you do.