I study the ecology of insect vectors of medical and veterinary importance in a changing world. The foundational hypothesis of my work is that disturbed environments (e.g., biodiversity loss, species invasions, zoos) alter existing host-pathogen-vector interactions. I have been a field collector for tick vectors of Lyme disease and mosquitoes, and investigated mosquito ecology and aberrant insect parasites in zoos, comparative mosquito morphology, vector competence and immune defense in mosquitoes, vector control methods, and vector behavior and pathogens in American Samoa, Switzerland, and the USA. 

I am an author on nine original research papers, seven first authored, on medical and veterinary entomology, and science journalism for students. I have collaborated with entomologists, modelers, molecular biologists, and veterinarians, and served as a public liaison for mosquito and tick collections in wildlife preserves and zoos, and a mosquito mass-release in American Samoa. I have won a US National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship, five research-based grants, ten merit-based awards, two scholarships, two presentation awards, an endowment award, and was Clemson University’s Outstanding Female Graduate Student of 2011.

My teaching experiences have included designing and teaching my own course, serving as a teaching assistant in three courses, and preparing numerous guest labs and lectures that reflect my passions in communication and science. I have won a teaching grant, and designed lectures and labs on grant-writing, science journalism, and vector biology and control. Because of the diversity of milieus in which I have taught (e.g., classroom lecture, entomology lab), I have been able to explore different teaching methods, such as group-based call and response, the Socratic method, directed lab exercises, and classic lecture delivery.

I am broadly trained in arthropod biology and ecology, including behavioral observation, colony establishment and rearing, dissection and preservation techniques, field collection methods, molecular analysis of blood-hosts and pathogens, and taxonomy. I have experience with agar streaking, antibody staining, cell culturing, microscopy, northern blots, plasmid transformation, PCR, RNAi, western blots, and yeast irradiation. I have extensive training in general lab maintenance and safety protocols. Additionally, I have training in statistical analysis (e.g., SAS, JMP, R), and in design and analysis of ecological field experiments (e.g., multivariate approaches).

I am interested in teaching and research appointments, including professorships. I have the potential to extend a research profile based on having strong existing collaborations and the ability to forge new ones, demonstrated grantsmanship abilities, and a fully-conceived research paradigm for the near-term (5-10 years) future, including existing fellowship proposals and well-developed research questions. I have extensive teaching experience in higher education and training at a range of levels. I also have undergraduate and graduate student project ideas prepared. I am interested in teaching a wide variety of courses, including ones on basic biology, ecology, and physiology; biological statistics; grant-writing; arthropod behavior, morphology, and taxonomy; parasitology; and scientific writing.