I am a current Population Biology PhD student at the University of California Davis in Marissa Baskett's lab. I use mathematical models to answer questions across the basic/applied spectrum related to disease and eco-evolutionary dynamics, mostly in marine systems. My research is currently supported by the Sustainable Oceans Traineeship at UC Davis and an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship award.
Before coming to UC Davis, I completed my undergraduate degree in Biology and Mathematics at St. Olaf College.
I have studied a range of questions related to disease and eco-evolutionary dyanmics. Below are some of my current projects. I am always excited to chat with people about disease dynamics, human-induced evolution, and potential collaborations!
Bitter crab disease: Bitter crab disease (Hematodinium perezi) is a fatal disease infecting snow crab (Chionoecetes opilio) in the Eastern Bering Sea. With collaborators at NOAA, I developed a spatio-temporal statistical model to understand patterns of bitter crab disease across the region over the past ~30 years, now published in ICES Drivers of bitter crab disease occurrence in eastern Bering Sea snow crab (Chionoecetes opilio).
Resistance evolution: Sea lice (Lepeophtheirus salmonis) are a common nusience parasite on salmon farms. To avoid negative costs of sea lice, aquaculture managers heavily treat lice, leading to novel selection pressures which favor treatment resistance. I am constructing a mathematical model to understand how different treatment and production strategies may slow evolution of treatment resistance. This model can be used to evaluate three-way trade-offs (or synergies) between aquaculture economics, conservation, and resistance evoltuion.
Virulence evolution: Parasites show a diverse range of virulence: some parasites have minor effects to their hosts, while others are lethal. I am building a theoretical model to understand how macroparasite sublethal virulence evolves using an emperical-relevent viruelnce metric (slowed host growth). This model will be applied to the sea lice/salmon aquaculture case study, to consider how different management practices can alter virulence evolution.
Evolutionary rescue: Disease can lead to host population declines. Simultaneously, hosts can evolve resistance to parasites across many dimensions: reduced mortality, increased recovery, etc, which may allow for populaiton recovery. I plan to create a genetic/demographic coupled model to understand how resistance type may change disease dynamics and potential of host evolutionary rescue.
I am proud to be part of the UC Davis Evolution & Ecology Preview Program. This program aims to remove barriers to graduate school by making the graduate school application process more transparent. I used information from Preview Program when I was applying to graduate school and am grateful to give back to the program. While at UC Davis, I have acted as the program's Support Chair (2023), Co-Mentor Coordinator (2022) and a workshop leader (2022, Finding & Contacting Potential Advisors).
I have created several modeling Shiny apps for use in youth camps and K-12 classrooms. As an example, I have created lessons and a Shiny model on salmon bioenergetics under different temperature and prey avalibility situations for use in K-12 classrooms as part of Juneau's Sea Week programing.
