My past work in research and conservation has included:

Avian neuroscience in the Birdbrain Lab

From 2018 to 2019, I was the Lab Manager for the Maney “Birdbrain” Lab at Emory University, where we researched song learning, social behavior, and aggression. In 2019 I led a summer field season in Minnesota to study white-throated sparrows (Zonotrichia albicollis).

Bare-parts as signals in avian communication

For my master’s research at Tulane University, I wrote the first synthetic review of how the unfeathered bare parts of birds–their bills, feet, wattles, and other colorful exposed skin–are used as signals, allowing birds to convey information about their health, status, or motivation to competitors, mates, and kin.

Effects of lead on urban mockingbirds

In 2018, I was the primary technician for the Karubian Lab on a study of urban Northern mockingbirds (Mimus polyglottos) in New Orleans, LA. We studied the impact of lead contamination in urban soils on their fitness and behavior, as lead has pervasive effects in the environment and on human health and behavior.

Agro-ecology on a Florida ranch

In 2017 I worked as an intern at Archbold Biological Station’s MacArthur Agro-ecology Research Station at Buck Island Ranch, Florida. I studied soil nutrients, fire ecology, grazing, wetlands, and greenhouse gasses on a working cattle ranch managed for scientific research and sustainability.

Surveying stream health in Colorado

I worked for Utah State University’s National Aquatic Monitoring Center in 2016 under contract for the Bureau of Land Management’s Western Rivers and Streams Assessment. We surveyed streams in remote drainages on public lands and assessed their health, biodiversity, and signs of human impacts.

Restoring longleaf pine forests

In 2015 I served as a Restoration Intern for the Nature Conservancy in Louisiana, helping to replant and manage endangered longleaf pine forests and the rich biodiversity they harbor across the Gulf Coast.

Biocontrol in Southern swamps

As an Environmental Steward with the National Park Service in 2015, I helped run a monitoring program for invasive wetland plants in the Barataria Preserve. We studied the impact of an insect introduced to ‘biocontrol’ the spread of the plant by consuming and limiting it.

Savanna ecology & conservation in South Africa

In 2014 I studied in the living laboratory of Kruger National Park and other South African ecosystems with the Organization for Tropical Studies, learning first-hand about the drivers of savanna ecosystem functioning and biodiversity as well as the challenges of conservation amid increasing human impacts.

Fire and home range size in Australian fairy-wrens

The first research project I completed was a study of home range size and habitat use by birds in Australia’s Northern Territory with the Karubian Lab. This project taught me to propose, analyze, and write about research, and set my sites on a scientific career.