BIO/CV

Curriculum Vitae

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I was raised in the West, in Utah.  I obtained my B.S. from Utah State University.  I worked for the Bureau of Land Management in El Centro, California for two years before attending Colorado State University to obtain my M.S. in Wildlife Biology.  I worked for four years at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Carlsbad, California as an endangered species biologist.  In 2009, I moved to Iowa to pursue my PhD in Wildlife Ecology with a PhD minor in Statistics at Iowa State University.  In 2015, I remained at Iowa State University as a Postdoctoral Research Associate to conduct research on monarch butterfly conservation.  

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My research has spanned many species and systems from the flat-tailed horned lizards in the Southwest to monarch butterflies of the Midwest.  My PhD project involved frogs and turtles of the Missouri River floodplain.  At the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service I was involved in work on Coachella Valley fringe-toed lizards, Peirson's milkvetch, Laguna Mountains Skipper, and coastal cactus wren, among others.  

My passions are things of nature and statistics.  Both are steeped in mystery - one the mystery of the secret lives and processes of the natural world, and one, the best tools we have to peek into a world that is more complex and mysterious than we can comprehend.