Welcome.
I am originally from Pennsylvania, and was raised in the woods just south of the Allegheny National Forest. In this environment, I began to gain an appreciation for the natural and unpolluted world. I moved to Durango, Colorado, for the majority of my college experience. Not only did I receive a degree in General Biology and a degree in French at Fort Lewis College, but I was also fortunate to have opportunities to study abroad in India and France throughout my education.
Traveling to India was an amazing experience that really permeated my thought process. I was immediately made aware that water quality was a weighty issue especially in urban areas. Rivers used for irrigation and drinking were murky with pollution around the cities I visited. I found myself wondering how long and what steps it would take to clean up these water resources. My future plans slowly began to organize themselves around my findings in India. I became certain of two things that remain a common theme in my thinking today:
1. I want to be a positively contributing member of society who facilitates helping people have better quality lives.
2. By focusing my energy toward science I will have the ability to work on projects that could advance knowledge in areas of environmental sustainability.
Shortly after returning from India, I participated in a large research project under the supervision of Dr. Erin Lehmer. My specific work was concerned with identifying the presence of the Sin Nombre virus (SNV) in deer mice. This virus exists in the Four Corners area and causes high rates (declining over the years) of mortality when transmitted to humans. Through this research I gained an appreciation for fieldwork, and my drive to participate in additional future projects that would directly benefit society became greater.
I then relocated from Colorado to Stillwater, Oklahoma, to continue my education with an MS and now a PhD (currently ABD) in Integrative Biology under the guidance of Dr. Belden. Over the course of my time in Oklahoma, I have examined the effects of rooftop runoff on soil load, specifically for the presence of PAHs in an urban area (the OKC Metro), with further exploration into roofing material and building use as contributing factors. I have also conducted a low-level in vitro study at the bioaccessability of these possible human carcinogens upon ingestion of contaminated soil. My current research is concerned with the distribution of carcinogenic PAHs and select heavy metals across public elementary school playgrounds in the Greater Oklahoma City Area. Not only do these pollutants exist often in ubiquitously high levels, putting children at possible risk for cancer, they are also correlated with areas of high density traffic, schools with lower income, and schools with higher nonwhite populations. You can learn more about my MS research here.
​
In addition to my graduate research, I also serve as the dry specimens collection manager at OSU's "small" natural history museum comprised of nearly 1,000,000 vertebrate specimens. I also work at a state sanctioned analytical laboratory. Through my studies and time served in Oklahoma, I have become proficient in museum management and specimen preparation, GCMS, HPLC, GIS, qPCR, as well as a variety of analytical extraction processes, and I have working knowledge of ICP.
