I was born and raised in San Jose, Calif., aside from three years living in Germany as a young child. Basketball and volleyball were my main sports growing up, though I dabbled in soccer, track and softball as well. I was a very active Girl Scout from kindergarten through high school and was a representative for my country at the National Girls’ Congress in 2004.

I went to college at the University of California-Santa Barbara where I began majoring in history, transitioned to aquatic biology and finally finished out with a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering. A fairly typical progression of majors, and I definitely landed in a career I am constantly excited about.

As a freshman in college, I was playing pick-up basketball at the recreation center. When I was leaving with a couple friends, we were stopped by a girl who told us there was an informational meeting upstairs about the club ultimate team, and there was free pizza. We went to the meeting for the pizza. About a month later, I was starting to miss having a team sport and went out to the ultimate practices with a friend. My basketball friend didn’t continue playing past that night, but and I am still all in 10 years later. My indecisiveness of major allowed me to play for the Burning Skirts for five fantastic years.

One of the reasons I fell in love with UCSB was the bike paths through campus and the culture around bikes for transportation. I have made it a priority since to live close enough to my job that I can bike to work.

I recently moved to San Francisco, Calif., for my current job working on self-driving trucks as a hardware engineer.

I enjoy designing, building and machining lots of things. Wood, metal, Legos – love them all. In my spare time, I like to ride my road bike, play board games or card games, ski, camp and play all kinds of sports.

Fun Facts about Carolyn:

• Most people call me Finney.
• I commuted from Santa Barbara (5-6 hours) to play with Fury for five seasons before finally moving to San Francisco the weekend after the 2016 season ended. I am so happy living close to all my teammates now. I have plenty of audio book recommendations from the past five years. I am very excited for my first year as a local player with Fury this season!
• I love traveling the world, and it’s great when ultimate is part of the experience. One of my favorite things about traveling to other countries is trying all the amazing foods. Canada is still on the list of countries I have yet to experience.
• I’ve tried playing several musical instruments – piano, violin, viola, taiko drum, Shakuhachi – and have yet to find my musical calling.