I’m broadly interested in the patterns of community assembly across scales ranging from the very small (what’s happening in the microbial community on a small part of a plant) to the global patterns of species diversity we see in the world. I’m especially interested in microbial, host-symbiont, and host-microbiome interactions, and their ecology and evolution. I’m also interested in what species pools are available to different populations and how communities assemble in natural un-disturbed populations vs. when facing different pressures/partners. This often leads me to asking questions employing large datasets to elucidate how communities are built the way they are!
I come from a broad biological background thinking largely about ecological questions, but trying to frame them in the tools of genetics and evolution. I am originally from Maryland, and did my undergraduate work at the University of Chicago (AB ’12). I then moved to Austin, TX, to work as a lab manager at the University of Texas at Austin. I’m now a PhD candidate in the Population Biology Graduate Group at University of California, Davis.
