"Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others" - Jonathan Swift

I grew up in Houston, Texas, loving animals (especially birds), the outdoors and science!  I have worked on all sorts of organisms in my career.  I did my undergrad senior thesis on "Hybridization as a Form of Speciation in Birds", a masters thesis on the genetics of "Eusocial Evolution in Honeybees", and PhD in "Genomics of High-Altitude Adaptation in Waterfowl".

My journey as a scientist has lead me to all sorts of places - before I was an NIH K99/R00 Fellow, I was a T32 NIH Hematology Training Fellow at the University of Utah, I was also an NSF Postdoctoral Fellow in Biology (Broadening Participation) at Oregon State University with Dr. Felipe Barreto. During my PhD, I was a Maytag Fellow at the University of Miami with Dr. Kevin McCracken. I did my Masters with Dr. Olav Rueppell at UNC Greensboro, and went to a small woman's college with no research program (RMWC, now Randolph College) for my undergrad.

Besides science, I like RPGs (ie DnD, both playing and watching live-streams!), video games, and science-fiction books/podcasts. And as the daughter of two artists (mother: painting/printmaking/sewing, father: residential-design/photography), I also like art, architecture and fashion.