Welcome

Thank you for visiting my website! I've always been fascinated by how things work, leading me down a path of physics, biology, and engineering to understand the processes of life, and eventually to becoming a scientist studying infectious diseases and parasites through that lens. I am also an electronics hobbyist and maker, avid motorcyclist, and passionate gamer.

Research

My current work as a postdoc in the Flory and Holt labs at the University of Florida investigates the role of an invasive grass as a conduit that facilitates the transmission of a fungal pathogen across ecosystem boundaries. I am utilizing lab, field, and theoretical approaches to describe the mechanisms by which this transmission occurs and its potential impact on crop yield.

My Ph.D. research has primarily focused on the thermal biology and environmental drivers of snail-borne parasitic flatworms. I was able to show the utility of using separate host and parasite temperature-dependent performance measurements in order to describe actual infection data in order to lead to better prediction of disease risk. This work also provides novel mechanistic models rooted in theory as a potential solution to modeling endagered ectotherms. I also study non-temperature environmental predictors of parasite abundance through large-scale field surveys utilizing DNA detection methods and spatial ecology. Read more about the Raffel Lab here.

I'm broadly interested in continuing these lines of research in thermal biology and energetics, species interactions, and disease ecology. I hope to eventually have my own research lab, where I will be able to continue to contribute to these fields and predict risk for conservation, water management, and human and veterinary health. A majority of my research efforts rely on open-source hardware and software solutions to obtain specialized measurements and precise temperature control, and I hope to continue to apply this skillset moving forward, especially in risk assessment applications.

For more details, please visit my Research tab!

Extra Life

In 2012, I started supporting Children's Miracle Network® and fundraising by playing games for 24-hours through the Extra Life program. Since then, I've raised over $39,000 for Corewell Health Children's of Southeast Michigan [formerly Beaumont Children's] in Royal Oak, Michigan. I currently serve as the Extra Life Detroit Guild Liason and Advisor, which is an official chapter fostering our local community's participation in the program. I also reach out and assist my local chapters (Riley Hospital for Children - Indiana, and UF Health Shands Children's Hospital - Florida) while traveling and moving in academia.

For more information, head over to my Extra Life tab!

Podcast

In early 2017, I founded, hosted, and produced a science podcast (Hashtag Science) with one of my good friends to encourage the two of us to develop our scientific communication skills by talking about current scientific news and journal articles, our research, and interviewing our other friends in science. However, after a year, we could not maintain a schedule alongside our work and are on an indefinite hiatus, thank you for listening!

You can read more at the Podcast tab. You can find the show at our website or on iTunes and Google Podcasts!