I am a tropical ecologist, and am broadly interested in exploring how both natural and ecological disturbance and environmental changes can shape the diversity and dynamics of tropical ecosystems. I am currently a 2023-2024 Fulbright Scholar in Rwanda at the Center of Excellence in Biodiversity and Natural Resource Management (CoEB) at the University of Rwanda. I completed my Ph.D. in 2023 in the Comita & Queenborough lab groups at the Yale School of the Environment, where was a Cullman Fellow at the joint YSE-New York Botanical Garden and a National Science Foundation GRFP Fellow. My dissertation work explores how selectively logged forests change and recover across plant life stages and through recovery time in the Monts de Cristal region of Gabon. Throughout my career, I have been lucky to engage in outreach work with several wonderful organizations. My Fulbright Scholar award has allowed me to engage in capacity-building work with CoEB and provide training for Rwandan students, interns, staff, and researchers. With the Forests Dialogue, I helped to facilitate multi-stakeholder meetings to engage policy-makers and land managers in Gabon and DRC. With the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History in New Haven, I have worked as a volunteer docent, helped to develop curriculum for grade school programs, co-curated photo exhibitions, and hosted online webinars for the museum's public programs. Before graduate school, I worked on ecological and conservation-focused research in Central Africa, Central and South America, southwestern China, and Arizona and Ohio in the United States. I earned a B.S. in Evolution, Ecology, and Organismal Biology from the Ohio State University in 2014. I studied botanical illustration prior to working in research & academia. Outside of work, you may find me out hiking, rock climbing, or baking a sweet treat to share in lab meeting. CV link Google Scholar link ResearchGate link |