About
I am a second-year PhD student in the School of Forestry at Northern Arizona University. My doctoral dissertation work focuses on adaptive characteristics of P. strobiformis and their relationship to resistance to white pine blister rust, a non-native invasive pathogen currently working its way across the southwestern US portion of the P. strobiformis range. Dr. Kristen Waring, a silviculture professor here at NAU and principal investigator on this project is my major advisor. Before attending NAU, I received a M.S. from North Carolina State University, working in the Christmas Tree Genetics department, studying biochemical resistance in different species of Abies (fir) to the non-native invasive insect Balsam Woolly Adelgid with Dr. John Frampton. I have a strong applied forest management background, working for several years with the US Forest Service in Colorado, where I became a certified timber cruiser, and working preparing timber sales in spruce beetle-killed stands. I also worked with Dr. Jim Worrall, leading a forest health crew inventorying Sudden Aspen Decline, which exhibits a strong interaction between abiotic (drought) and biotic (pathogens and insects) stress. I wish to continue my work with forest health, as climate change and invasive pests continue to pose new challenges for land managers.
Joined
October 2017