About Me
Research Interests
The central question motivating my research relates to understanding how populations and species respond to environmental change. I combine fieldwork, museum collections, genomic data, and computational approaches to investigate the influence of historical factors (e.g., climate change), evolutionary processes (e.g., gene flow), and species interactions (e.g., host-parasite dynamics).
I promote an ‘open science’ philosophy, contributing to and using a variety of biodiversity databases (e.g., GBIF, VertNet, GenBank), natural history collections, and open-source code. My research projects focus on amphibians, reptiles, birds, and their blood parasites. My goal is to further our understanding of biodiversity and contribute to its preservation.
Bio
I was born in Arizona and grew up in South Florida before heading off to college at the University of Florida with a vague goal to "work with animals". I sensibly chose Zoology as a major and when my Bio 1 lab TA asked me to join the Reed Lab at the Florida Museum of Natural History, I got hooked on research. My Ph.D. research at Florida State University in Ecology and Evolution allowed me to spend years exploring an amazing hotspot for amphibian biodiversity, the Apalachicola region of North Florida. These days if I'm not in front of a computer or in the lab, there's a good chance I'm out looking for herps, birds, and National Park (or actual) passport stamps.
Education
Ph.D. Biological Science (Ecology and Evolution), Florida State University, 2016
Thesis: Evolutionary insights from analyses of spatial genetic variation in North American frogs
Advisors: Emily M. Lemmon and Scott J. Steppan
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B.S. Zoology, University of Florida, 2009
Honors Thesis: Molecular systematics of the Southeastern pocket gopher (Geomys pinetis)
Advisor: David L. Reed
Appointments & Fellowships
The Ohio State University President's Postdoctoral Scholars Program (2018–20)
Department of Evolution, Ecology and Organismal Biology, Ohio State University
Mentor: Bryan C. Carstens
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NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellow – Research Using Biological Collections (2016–18)
Department of Biology and Museum of Southwestern Biology, University of New Mexico
Mentors: Christopher C. Witt and Staffan Bensch (Lund University, Sweden)
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NSF GROW with USAID Research & Innovation Fellow (2014–15)
National Zoological Gardens of South Africa
Collaborator: Desiré L. Dalton
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NSF Graduate Research Fellow (2010–15)
