Postdoctoral Research

I started this postdoc in the fall of 2023 and we are still designing new studies! My main focus at the moment is a genomic investigation into patterns of selection in response to an introduced parasitic fly.

Research in my Ph.D.

I completed by Evolutionary Biology Ph.D. at Arizona State University in Dr. Kevin McGraw’s lab, where I studied avian evolution in the context of color signals. My dissertation work was on the physiological, morphological, and genetic responses of northern cardinals and pyrrhuloxia to urbanization in Tucson, Arizona, and on patterns of speciation in seabirds. I also held several research assistantships. I was awarded an inclusive teaching fellowship, through which I revised ASU’s Animal Behavior curriculum and designed and implemented a study to evaluate the effect of these changing on LGBTQ student perceptions of belonging in science. I also was awarded a research assistantship to design and implement a study of the effects of “rewilding” efforts on an urban avian community.

Sulidae Project — Dr. Scott Taylor’s Lab

Sula sula, S. leucogaster, S. dactylatra, S. grantii, S. variegata, S. nebouxii. I designed and implemented an investigation into seabird speciation using whole genome sequence data of the six species of boobies: red-footed, brown, masked, Nazca, Peruvian, and blue-footed boobies. This paper is in the revision process, but a preprint can be found here. And see below for our abstract!

Preprint abstract: The mechanisms that restrict gene flow between populations and facilitate population differentiation and speciation vary across the tree of life. In systems where physical barriers to gene flow are dynamic over time and space, such as many marine species, introgression may be a major factor in the speciation process. In sympatric species of seabirds with no land barriers between them, hybridization has been frequently observed but few studies have investigated patterns of introgression. We used whole-genome sequence data to test for interspecific introgression between five pairs of tropical and subtropical seabirds and to test for gene flow within species across major land masses and ocean basins. We found evidence for introgression between blue-footed (Sula nebouxii) and Peruvian boobies (S. variegata); masked (S. dactylatra) and Nazca boobies (S. granti); and blue-footed and Nazca boobies. We found no evidence of introgression between blue-footed and brown boobies (S. leucogaster) and masked and brown boobies despite observed hybridization between these species. We also found evidence for gene flow across several major land masses in three pantropical species: red-footed (S. sula), brown, and masked boobies. Finally, we report evidence for ancient introgression between brown boobies and the ancestor of blue-footed, Peruvian, masked, and Nazca boobies. Our work indicates (1) that interspecific introgression has shaped contemporary booby diversity in the eastern Pacific, and (2) that contemporary physical barriers to gene flow between booby colonies are not impenetrable. Our findings contribute novel insights to the growing body of evidence that suggests introgression is a widespread evolutionary process.

My Pre-PhD Research Journey

My research career began as an undergraduate in Dr. Stacey Smith’s lab at the University of Colorado Boulder. I learned so much from her and from everyone in her lab, especially Dr. Julienne Ng, who at the time was a postdoc in the lab. I spent a year working in her lab funded first through a BURST grant and then over the summer through an REU.

After I graduated, I moved out to Michigan for the opportunity to work with Dr. David Lowry at Michigan State University. I am so grateful to everyone in that lab, and to the researchers from the College of Education with whom we collaborated. They helped me see more avenues for scientific outreach and they taught me so much about evolutionary genomics.

I next worked with Dr. Scott Taylor at the University of Colorado Boulder, who helped me form the questions that formed the foundation of my dissertation research. How do human activities change evolutionary processes in wild populations, and how are species morphologies and behaviors affected by humans? How can we understand these processes on a broad spatial scale?

My work with Dr. Kevin McGraw through my PhD has greatly expanded my toolset for approaching these questions, especially when thinking about the interactions between organismal physiology and ecological processes.

Storytelling for a 7th Grade Curriculum — Dr. David Lowry’s Lab

While I worked in David’s lab at MSU, we collaborated with education researchers associated with Create for STEM to create a curriculum that could be distributed to 7th grade classrooms around the country. I helped design the experiments for the curriculum, based on David’s past work on the genetic mechanisms of adaptive divergence in Mimulus guttatus, and wrote short stories that would ground those experiments in human experience. I intended to create stories that the students would relate to, so that they could see themselves as scientists, and to tell the stories in a way that encouraged the students to integrate their scientific thoughts into their lives. The curriculum has been enacted in several middle schools in Flint and Detroit.

This year, I was recontacted by David and the education researchers because they are interested in transforming the stories into an illustrated experience. I have been storyboarding and working with a visual artist to reshape this resource into a small graphic novel.

The Boulder Chickadee Study — Dr. Scott Taylor’s Lab

Poecile major, P. gambeli. I helped the Taylor Lab get a long term study of chickadees up off the ground. I built Potter traps to catch chickadees, helped build nest boxes, and designed the logo, which were screenprinted onto the hundreds of next boxes that will go up in the Boulder area and at CU’s Mountain Research Station. I worked closely with Dr. Kathryn Grabenstein, an incredible scientist, mentor, and friend who taught me a lot about mist netting, bird banding, and fieldwork. Her dissertation work through this project has found some very interesting things, and the latest papers and updates on the project can be found on the Taylor Lab website.