I am a PhD candidate in Earth science at UC Santa Cruz. I study selective evolution of crustaceans in the wake of ancient hyperthermals, such as the mid-Cretaceous OAEs and the PETM.

I was raised in Millbrae, CA, where I developed a love for nature, the outdoors and especially dinosaurs. In time, the interest in dinosaurs faded, but the fascination with the natural world stayed with me. I attended Mount Holyoke College as a double major in biology and geology. I had the opportunity to be an undergraduate researcher the University of Göttingen through the German Academic Exchange (DAAD) RISE program. This introduced me to research, as well as the idea of combining paleoclimate and paleobiological approaches. I did some soul-searching as well, and came out as transgender shortly after. In 2019, I graduated cum laude from Mount Holyoke, and began work as a GIS tech in Silicon Valley. It was stable work, but I missed research. In 2020, I began my PhD at UCSC.

Research Interests

I am interested in how organisms evolve in the aftermath of rapid environmental change. I think about big ideas such as:

• What causes a smaller mass extinction to kill off fewer lineages of organisms than a major mass extinction?
• Are some organisms more likely to go extinct during a mass extinction because of their ecological niche?
• Can we find extinction drivers through selective extinction, and vice versa?
• What happens when an extreme environmental change happens but only a small number of species go extinct? Do they have to “give up” adaptations to survive?
• Can patterns of ancient temperature-induced mass extinction be used to anticipate patterns in the future?

Specifically, I study how crustaceans selectively evolve in the face of past hyperthermal (global warming) events.