Mitch was born in the quiet winery town of Harrow ON, where he was raised by tight-knit and indefinitely loud Portuguese immigrants. Mitch escaped a whole 30 minutes north for his BSc at the University of Windsor (a very Windsor thing) to study chemistry as an Outstanding Scholar undergraduate researcher. There he worked with Jeremy Rawson on the synthesis of P/N/S heterocycles, while spending his summers at the University of Toronto as an NSERC USRA with Paul Santerre synthesizing antimicrobial polymers for medical applications. He would stay on at Windsor with Prof Rawson as an NSERC CGS-M Master’s student studying fluorescent radicals and crystal engineering of magnetic (often magentic) materials. He also dodged the snow in Irvine, California as an NSERC Michael Smith Visiting Scholar with Bill Evans to study reactivity of low-valent lanthanides during his MSc. Not knowing whether to do his PhD, medical research, or to escape academia while he was ahead, Mitch graduated his MSc and began a job with engineering firm SNP Technical Services to work with the UWindsor Faculty of Science Project Management Team in coordinating the construction of the new Centre of Research. Mitch soon saw the light and decided to make a return to academia to pursue his PhD in the Manners group, where he works on the synthesis of main group heterocycles and polymers. In his free time, he enjoys meeting new people, visiting local pubs, learning new languages, music, hiking, and cooking things that barely pass for food.