I have been at Ohio State since 2002, becoming a tenured Associate Professor in 2008. Before that, I spent several years in New Jersey working on my Ph.D. at Rutgers University, in Prof. Barbara Ryder's research group. (No, New Jersey is not as bad as you have heard.) I like to hike, camp, and bike, but never have the time to do it. In my non-existent spare time I hang out with friends, visit the local micro-breweries, and try to convince myself to hit the gym.

If you are wondering about my name: Atanas comes from here. People usually call me Nasko: Atanas ends with "nas", and "ko" is a standard suffix for creating short names in my native Bulgaria. Now, someone please explain to me how you get Dick from Richard.