The Daily e-mailed faculty a short questionnaire that strayed beyond their work at Stanford. Here is a glimpse into the personalities behind your professors.

Hometown: Chicago, Ill.

Undergrad: Carleton College, music major

Grad school: UC-San Diego, doctorate in music composition

Fan of: The 1990s Chicago Bulls

Hobbies: Inventing silly games with my daughter, cooking, tap dancing, traveling to places where people have different assumptions about life

#1 on my playlist: I try not to listen to music because it’s a job for me.

Favorite book: anything by Chuck Klosterman

Favorite movie: This Is Spinal Tap

If you could only eat one food group for the rest of your life, would it be grains, meat, vegetables or fruit?: Which food group is the Pop Tart in? How about a group comprising only salt, MSG, high fructose corn syrup, partially hydrogenated vegetable oil, sodium nitrates and Bacos? I think that might even be vegan…

If I hadn’t gone into academia, I’d be: in prison

Department: Music

Classes taught: This fall, “Readings in Music Theory.” Winter, “Rock, Sex, and Rebellion.” Spring, “The British Invasion.”

Primary research interest/project: I compose uncompromising and unmarketable experimental music and build sound-sculptures (instruments made of junk, hardware and found objects mounted on electroacoustic soundboards and played with chopsticks, wind-up toys, violin bows and plectra).