Bio

I received my BA from Willamette University in Salem Oregon. I then spent a few years teaching at an outdoor science school, bouncing around the country as a seasonal field technician, and skiing at Lake Tahoe, before heading back to school. For my MS, I studied the egg laying habitat requirements of a rare butterfly, Mardon skipper, with Dr. Cheryl Schultz at Washington State University. I then moved to the Florida Keys where I worked with Dr. Nick Haddad at NC State to develop abundance estimates and monitoring protocols for one of the rarest butterflies in the world, Miami blue. This position eventually led me to pursue a PhD with Dr. Haddad studying the role of disturbance in the conservation of at-risk butterflies. As my dissertation concluded, I secured funding from both NSF and Everglades National Park to continue my research evaluating the interacting effects of multiple disturbances on population dynamics. In early 2021, as my previous funding was wrapping up, I was recruited back to Washington State University to lead a research effort that aims to evaluate the effectiveness of different management strategies for Oregon silverspot butterflies. When I’m not chasing butterflies or building population models, I enjoy spending time with family and friends and the mountains.