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2010-2012 National Institutes of Health Building Interdisciplinary
Research Careers in Women's Health (BIRCWH) Scholar at
the University of Illinois at Chicago (K12HD055892)
2009-current Assistant Professor, University of Illinois at Chicago
Director, Comparative Primate Biology Laboratory
2007-2009 Postdoctoral Fellow, Northwestern University
2007 Ph.D., Biological Anthropology, Indiana Unversity
Minors: Animal Behavior, Medical Sciences (Anatomy & Histology)
2004 M.A., Biological Anthropology, Indiana University
1994 B.A., Anthropology & Zoology, Miami University
I am a biological anthropologist at the University of Illinois at Chicago. I teach general and craniofacial histology to first year dental students in the UIC College of Dentistry, and I am also an adjunct assistant professor in the UIC Department of Anthropology.
All of my research questions revolve around a central interest in the dynamic maternal environment in which a fetus develops. I am primarily interested in the primate placenta as a signaling interface between mother and fetus. I work with both humans and non-human primates to address questions regarding the effect of maternal ecology (nutrition, life history experience, behavior) on placental morphology, metabolic function, and gene expression and downstream sequelae for offspring health both postnatally and later in life.
 I take a womb-to-womb approach to life history studies: I want to connect the dots between the fetal intrauterine environment experienced by an individual and the intrauterine experience that individual provides her offspring later in life. This intergenerational dynamic of environment, development, growth, and function is a crucible for evolutionary change.
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