CURRENT APPOINTMENTS |
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Assistant Professor Department of Earth Sciences, Southern Methodist University 2022-
Affiliate Faculty Data Science Institute, Southern Methodist University 2022-
PAST APPOINTMENTS |
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Postdoctoral Fellow Center for Marine Biotechnology and Biomedicine, Scripps Institution of Oceanography 2019-2022
Research Fellow Department of Microbial and Environmental Genomics, J. Craig Venter Institute 2021-2022
Research Affiliate Climate and Ecosystem Science Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory 2018
Graduate Student Researcher Department of Ecology and Evolution, University of California, Irvine 2014-2018
Research Associate Department of Ecology and Evolution, University of California, Los Angeles 2012-2013
Research Assistant National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Teaching 2009-2010
EDUCATION |
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Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Biological Sciences, University of California, Irvine 2014-2018
Master of Science Department of Ecology and Evolution, University of California, Irvine 2014-2017
Bachelor of Science Biological Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles 2008-2012
I'm a converted ecologist trying to figure out microbesBorn and raised in Southern California. I attended UCLA for my undergraduate studies where I became fascinated with the field of community ecology. The central question of what processes control biodiversity was so interesting that I became obsessed with plant diversity in tropical forests. Particularly, why were there so many more plant species in the tropical regions vs. boreal forests or the California landscape? But if you want to study biodiversity, why stop at plants?? Better to just jump in the deep-end as there is nothing better than looking at the most diverse organisms on the planet, microbes! I finished my PhD under Dr. Jennifer Martiny at UC Irvine where I investigated the ecological and evolutionary processes contributing to biogeographic patterns (diversity and distribution) of microbes. Also, I am a HUGE fan of English bulldogs, including the best one ever, Nala (pictured). |
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