I earned my B.S. in Ecology and Evolution and a Minor in Portuguese from the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) in 2019. While at UCSB, I carried out a Senior Thesis investigating phylogeographic trends among populations of an estuarine sea-blite (Chenopodiaceae: Suaeda esteroa) using herbarium specimens. Throughout undergad, I also worked on projects with Hillary Young's lab studying effects of the erradication of an invasive rat species on a tropical atoll and cascading impacts of defaunation in California oak woodlands. In my final year at UCSB, I acted as field team coordinator for an undergrad led project about seed dispersal of oak species on California's Santa Cruz Island. Following graduation, I worked as a field technician conducting population studies of Island Scrub-jays (Aphelocoma insularis) and Western Yellow-billed Cuckoos (Coccyzus americanus), as well as developed a citizen science project at IPBio's Reserva Betary.  I entered the graduate program as Master's student in Ecology, Evolution and Biodiversity at São Paulo State University, Rio Claro in 2021. I plan on expanding my current project to continue to investigate similar themes in my PhD work with PI Marina Corrêa Côrtes.