Additional research interests include:

•  Sexual dimorphism within species including differences in body shape, body size, and fin morphology and its relation to swimming ability.

• Impacts of ornamental traits on predation and swimming ability. 

• Influences of invasive species on native species of fishes.

• Feeding rate of invasive mosquito-eating fishes such as the mosquitofish.

• Impacts of introduction of fishes for the means of controlling mosquito populations, and its influence on mosquito transmitted diseases.

Following the completion of my PhD, I will start as an assistant professor at Northwest Missouri State University, a University  with a thriving undergraduate research program. I will continue to teach, but also will have the opportunity to train undergraduates in research skills that will be beneficial to them when applying to graduate school or research based fields, in the hopes to help train the next generation of scientists.

I am excited by the opportunity I will have to design a field-based, and lab-based Ichthyology course, to train students in fish identification, collection techniques, and help them gain an appreciation for the broad diversity of fishes in the Midwest.