Growing up, I always though I would become a marine biologist. I was pursuing that path in college, and even got to do my own research project on Christmas tree worms (pictured below!) on Mo'orea in the French Polynesian Archipelago!

My plans for my career changed in my junior year though when I took a course on paleontology that fulfilled a major requirement. I realized how essential paleontology and geoscience are for understanding why the Earth today looks like it does, and I realized I didn't want to only focus on what exists on present-day Earth; I wanted a fuller and broader picture of what life on Earth has looked like over time!

That class inspired me to join a paleontology research lab (which means that I went to the Professor who ran that lab and asked if they had any projects I could help with), and ever since then I've been knee deep in all the fossils and rocks I could hope for!