I received my BA in Biology from Skidmore College in 2018, where I worked with Dr. David Domozych studying the green alga Penium margaritaceum. I recently defended my PhD dissertation on grapevine genetics and development in the Department of Plant Biology at Michigan State University where I was advised by Dr. Chad Niederhuth. In May 2024, I started a post-doc with Dr. Andrea Sweigart at the University of Georgia where I investigated the relationship between mating systems, transposable elements, and epigenetic modifications in monkeyflowers. I received an NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship in Biology in July 2025 to investigate the origin and persistence of self-fertilization in monkeyflowers, which I started in August 2025.
My passion for biology started out of an adoration for the natural world and has led me down various routes - from my first project monitoring a bat population in high school to my PhD work studying grapevine genetics and development, as well as genome and epigenome evolution in angiosperms.
