- I’m an evolutionary biologist and specialize in the study of small mammals from the tropics. Basically, tiny nocturnal critters (mostly rodents, shrews, and marsupials) that we don’t know much about and that most people don’t think about. But they are still important parts of their ecosystems! One of the benefits of working with obscure animals is that there is a lot still to discover. I have been part of research teams that have helped describe 19 new shrew species from Africa and Indonesia, one entirely new shrew genus from the Philippines, two new rodent species from Africa, and two new opossum species from Central and South America. In the past year, students in my lab have been helping me to generate DNA sequence data that will be used to describe at least three new rodent species from the western Amazon.
- I have had a lifelong interest in maps and geography. This is actually helpful in my research, because I study animals from some really fascinating parts of the world and work in the area of biogeography. As a kid I would stare at maps and atlases for hours, and eventually look up things in the encyclopedia that struck me as unusual or novel. I remember doing this for the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, which is probably the most strangely shaped large island in the world. Now I study animals that live on that island!
- I’ve loved video games since I was a kid. My first gaming console was a Sega Genesis back in the early 1990s, eventually leading me to GameBoys, Playstations 1-3, and others. At the moment, all I have is a Nintendo Switch, which is perfect for the more casual gaming I do now. I got really good at playing Mario Kart 8 online during the height of the pandemic lockdown when I couldn’t leave the house much.
- I was a pretty big band nerd in high school. Band was most of my social life! I was clarinet section leader my junior and senior year and kept playing through college. I passed the baton to my younger brother, another big band nerd and excellent saxophone player, and he ended up becoming drum major for our high school marching band after I graduated.
- I adopted Peanut—a very nervous adult chihuahua with a bad hip—back in July 2020 when everyone was getting pandemic puppies. I grew up with big dogs and never expected to have such a tiny thing, but I love her so much now. Peanut has come a long way since I adopted her! She is much friendlier to both people and other dogs and has had a few surgeries to help her mobility. She is a loyal and extremely cute companion.
- I have four nephews under six years old, all of whom are obsessed with dinosaurs, spiders, and bugs (and, yes, Spiderman too!). I don’t know how I got so lucky. I love showing them pictures of weird bugs—or other things that might scare the average kid—and seeing them react with excitement instead of fear.
- I was born in Kansas and spent most of my childhood there, but both of my parents are east coasters. My dad is from Boston and my mom is from New Jersey. So when I moved to Albany in 2015 I was moving farther away from my nuclear family but a lot closer to many other relatives.
- I am fortunate to have grown up in a family with the means to travel. When I was a kid, we mostly stuck to road trips around the United States and Canada. As my siblings and I got older, we went on trips to Europe, Australia, and Asia. I still love to explore and have visited many new places on my own or with friends, including field work in grad school in Argentina. This past summer I went to Europe to visit my sister, who lives in Paris, and then visited Slovenia—a gorgeous little country next to Italy.
- My guilty pleasure is watching competitive reality TV shows. I love both current and ancient seasons of RuPaul’s Drag Race, Survivor, the Great British Baking Show, Glow Up, America’s Next Top Model, and others. I have an embarrassingly encyclopedic knowledge of some of them.
- I love word games and puzzles. If you walk past my office around mid-day, you might see me performing my post-lunch ritual: a quick round of the online puzzles Wordle, Worldle, and Quordle!
