In my research, I aim to contribute to society's understanding of evolution, but simultaneously believe that pursuing the answers to questions purely for the sake of knowledge is a worthy cause and try to foster both of these tenants in my work. In teaching, I see my role as that of a coach. I believe that teaching students how to learn and think critically is equally as important as the curriculum of their coursework. While my drive to pursue academia is primarily rooted in my love for both research and teaching, I am also driven by a strong sense of justice - that all people deserve an opportunity to pursue knowledge. I aim to utilize my voice, in current and future positions, to advocate for this access.
My passion for plant evolution was ignited through my undergraduate coursework when I took the Evolutionary Morphology of Vascular Plants, taught by my undergraduate and Master's advisor, Dr. Mihai Tomescu. While the content by no means came to me easily, I was enchanted by the story narrated by the various plant forms of the last 400 million years. This class inspired a barrage of questions about plant evolution (some of which I find myself still wondering about today), and served as the catalyst for my desire to pursue a career in science. As a Master's student, I was able to pursue my interest in systematics, culminating in a morphology-based project published in the International Journal of Plant Sciences special issue in honor of Dr. Francis Heuber. As I move into a new season of my academic career, I am looking to continue classical morphology and anatomy studies of both fossil and living plants, as well as move some of my work into sytematic theory as it pertains to morphology-based systematic analysis. I am a very proud alumnus of the Tomescu Lab at Humboldt State University (now Cal Poly Humboldt) and current member of the Matsunaga Lab at the University of Kansas. You can learn more about my specific projects here. I discovered my love for teaching early in my academic career. As an undergraduate student, I worked as a tutor in many subjects and as a supplemental instruction leader for general botany. Since then, I have enjoyed working as a teaching assistant at HSU as well as at KU and seeing my students go on to start careers in industry, go to graduate school, and recieve numerous awards and scholarships. Aside from my current position as a teaching assistant, I am also a certified workshop instructor through The Carpentries, a role in which I teach practical data and software skills to other researchers. You can learn more about my work with The Carpentries here.