Summary: I am a biologist with a foundation in biochemistry and molecular biology. My early research focused on iron-dependent regulation of microRNA biogenesis, including the discovery of DGCR8’s RNA heme-binding domain—the first RNA-binding motif of this kind. My postdoctoral work centered on the temporal dynamics of co-transcriptional RNA splicing, investigating how cells edit genetic information as it’s transcribed. Now my projects are focused in molecular ecology, leveraging environmental DNA (eDNA) to track ecological responses to environmental stressors such as, wildfires, floods, industrial agriculture and Harmful Algal Blooms (HABs). By analyzing biodiversity shifts across ecosystems, my work seeks to identify how biological communities adapt to disruption, and to provide insights for conservation and adaptive land management in rapidly changing environments.