Population and Community Ecology

I am currently (2023-present) a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the School for Environmental and Sustainability (SEAS) at the University of Michigan with Dr. Karen Alofs where I work on two projects. For the first project, we are using museum specimens and a trait-based approach to disentangle the impacts of climate change from other environmental stressors on body-size across species in freshwater fish communities. For the second, I am modeling spawning habitat suitability as part of the Coregonine Restoration Initiative in the Great Lakes, a collaborative effort between state, provincial, and federal agencies in the US and Canada. In 2022, I received my PhD from Florida International University (FIU) in the Department of Biological Sciences in the Aquatic Ecology Lab with Dr. Joel Trexler. 

My research interests are as an aquatic ecologist who primarily studies fishes and food webs. My research aims to use food webs to integrate across ecological scales connecting individuals to ecosystem functions and services to understand how populations, communities, food webs, and ecosystems are responding to anthropogenic stressors (e.g., climate change, hydrologic alteration, and invasive species). During my PhD at FIU, I investigated drivers of trophic dynamics in space and time such as: seasonality and habitat heterogeneity, ecosystem engineering by American alligators (Alligator mississippiensis), and invasive species - particularly African Jewelfish (Rubricatochromis [formerly Hemichromis] letourneuxi).