About

I am an evolutionary biologist with a background in museum ornithology. My research program uses natural experiments to understand the speciation process from start to finish. I’m currently searching for faculty positions with the hope of launching my own research lab.

I am currently a La Kretz Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of California Los Angeles, where I am working in the Aguillon Lab. My postdoc research focuses on studying the “end” of the speciation process, specifically the genomic risk factors determining extinction risk in the Island Scrub-jay.

I recently earned my PhD from the University of Kansas, where I worked in the Moyle Lab, located in the KU Natural History Museum. My doctoral research focused on understanding how new species arise using the birds of the Pacific Islands as a natural experimental framework.

I first became interested in evolutionary biology while earning my Bachelors of Science at Occidental College, where I worked with the avian specimen collection in the Moore Laboratory of Zoology.

Education & Training

• La Kretz Postdoctoral Fellow, 2024-current
  University of California Los Angeles
• PhD in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, with honors, 2024
  University of Kansas
• Madison and Lila Self Graduate Fellow, 2018-2022
  University of Kansas
• Bachelor of Arts in Biology, Cum Laude, 2017
  Occidental College