About
Currently, I am a PhD candidate at the University of Western Ontario, Canada. My present research utilizes aquatic macroinvertebrate taxonomy and functional traits to assess if community patterns are associated with the amount and location of anthropogenic land use within agriculturally dominated Southwestern Ontario watersheds. My passion for freshwater ecology extends far beyond Ontario. My involvement with the Las Gralarias Foundation (lasgralariasfoundation.org) in Ecuador has lead to my desire to learn more about the ecology of Neotropical streams. As I continue in academia, I will maintain my collaboration with the other authors on this project, along with new graduate and undergraduate students, to continue research in the streams of this fascinating part of the world.
I have a degree in Natural Resources from The Ohio State University, a Masters of Arts in Teaching from Kent State University, and a Masters in Science from Grand Valley State University in Michigan. I will be completing my PhD at the University of Western Ontario in the spring of 2017. At Grand Valley State I studied aquatic invertebrate assemblages within the most common mesohabitats of a sand dominated stream. I have presented numerous times at scientific conferences and I am currently working on preparing my PhD research for publication. In my previous lives I was a park naturalist for Lake Metroparks in northern Ohio and a high school science teacher for Gateway Alternative School, Caldwell County North Carolina.
Joined
October 2016