About Me

I am originally from the Wasatch Front of the Rocky Mountains in Utah and spent a lot of time camping and exploring the vast amounts of national parks and forests in the state. After graduating high school I served as a missionary for 2 years in the mountainous Visayas region of the Philippines. 

From 2016-2022 I attended Brigham Young University where I earned a bachelor's and master's degree in Physiology and Developmental Biology. I am currently working towards my PhD in Biology at the University of Rochester. My main focus is examining the molecular basis of meiotic drive mechanisms. Rochester is a special place for this kind of research having been home to many of the most well recognized evolutionary geneticists like Jack Werren, Tom Eickbush, and Allen Orr. This tradition is carried forward by my mentor, Amanda Larracuente. **Check out the Larracuente Lab Website!**

I am broadly interested in describing naturally occurring mechanisms that result in non Mendelian inheritance be it by genomic elements that are selfish or otherwise. I believe that studying these mechanisms is valuable for understanding how ecosystems and populations evolve and adapt, how selfish genetic elements influence fertility, and can inform the generation of synthetic drive systems meant to tackle major global problems in human health and agriculture.