Can you tell me about your research?

I specialize in the population ecology of forest insect pests, and the interactions among plants and insects. I am particularly interested in factors that influence important demographic parameters of insect populations. Much of my recent work has focused on the effects of temperature, and how altered thermal regimes could impact pest outbreaks.

How did you get to where you are now, in terms of your education and training in science?

I’m originally from the suburbs of Rochester, NY. I completed my B.S. in Environmental and Forest Biology from SUNY ESF and went on to do an M.S. in Environmental and Plant Biology at Ohio University.  Afterwards, I worked as a research technician in the Forest Ecology lab at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center in Edgewater Maryland, just outside of Annapolis. I left the Smithsonian to begin a Ph.D. program in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Dartmouth College in Hanover, NH. I then worked as a post-doc in the forest entomology lab at the University of Massachusetts, and spent the past year as an Assistant Professor in the Biology Department at Utica College in upstate, NY.

What does your research team currently look like?

Being a new faculty here, I’m still in the process of getting my lab up and running, although I do have a few ongoing projects with collaborators at other institutions. If students are interested in the work I do, they should feel free to contact me and we can discuss some potential ideas.

What classes will you teach in the fall? Which are you most excited to teach?

I’ll be teaching the plant physiology course (BIOL 435) and the Contemporary Bioscience (BIOL 101) course for non-majors. I really think both will be fun and interesting!

At St. Mary’s, the students have an unofficial slogan “Keep St. Mary’s Weird.” Do you have any endearing quirks that fit with this motto?

I have a habit running off after interesting insects that might happen to fly by. If you see me walking around campus and I suddenly bolt off in another direction, that’s probably why.

Is there anything I didn’t mention that you’d like to add?

I would just add that I’m really looking forward to my time here at St. Mary’s,

What research do you plan to conduct in Maryland?

The coastal regions of Maryland have been experiencing outbreaks of southern pine beetle recently. This insect has greatly expanded it’s influence in the northern extremes of its geographic range in recent years. Maryland has a number of potential host pine tree species that aren’t prevalent in this insect’s historic southern habitat. Some basic observational and experimental studies could reveal important information about how variation in host species might affect beetle population dynamics.

What is your favorite aquatic organism and why?

I think I’m going to have to go with the mantis shrimp on this one. Mostly because of their incredibly unique eye characteristics.

Can you tell me about your research?

My research questions focus on evolutionary genetics in plants. My primary interest is in how plant populations respond to selective pressures caused by herbivores, and what factors might help or limit those responses. Insect herbivores can be responsible for a great deal of damage to a plant, and plants have evolved some really creative defenses against them. The specific defenses that I work on are glucosinolates—the same compounds that give that characteristic sharp taste to vegetables like brussel sprouts, cabbage, or horseradish. The plant that I’ve worked on, Boechera stricta, makes several different types of gucosinolates, and many populations have genetic variation for which types individuals make. We’re not entirely sure why this variation has persisted for so long. I’m interested in how different species of herbivores feeding on different parts of the plant exert selection on glucosinolate type, and whether the population is free to evolve in response to this selection, or whether it’s constrained.

How did you get to where you are now in terms of your education and training in science?

When I was an undergrad at Mount Holyoke College, the intro course that I took my first semester focused on plants, which is when I decided that that was what I wanted to research. So that part happened pretty quickly—within one semester I went from not even being sure what I was going to major in, to deciding what I wanted to do with my research career. Fortunately, I was able to get some additional research experience to test out whether this was actually what I wanted to do. As a rising junior, through an Research Experience for Undergraduates program at Kansas State University, I was introduced to the fields of ecological and evolutionary genetics, which combined several fields that I was interested in. I got to spend a summer doing research on sunflowers there, and loved it. I found that using genetics to answer ecological questions let me get more deeply into the mechanisms underlying interactions, something that continues to fascinate me. I continued that interest in my senior honors thesis, and it took me to Duke University for graduate school, where there were a number of faculty doing excellent research in evolutionary genetics. There, I got more training in the evolution side of my work, and in designing and carrying out experiments in the field. As a grad student TA, I realized that I also loved teaching as much as research, which is what’s brought me to working in liberal arts colleges like SMCM, where both types of work are emphasized and valued.

What does your research team currently look like?

At the moment, my team is me and one SMCM student who will be starting with me in the fall. If anyone else is interested, I’d be happy to talk!

What classes will you teach in the fall? Which are you most excited to teach?

In the fall, the only class I’m teaching is Genetics. Which I’m definitely excited about!

At St. Mary’s, the students have an unofficial slogan “Keep St. Mary’s Weird.” Do you have any endearing quirks that fit with this motto?

I have an identical twin sister. When she comes to visit, she enjoys sitting in the library and seeing how many people think she’s me. So, for a week or two of the year, if I don’t seem to recognize you, don’t be offended. It’s probably not actually me! We’ve also been part of a twins study since we were babies, so in class I always like to talk about how twin studies are used to learn about genetics, and the experiments that we were a part of.

How will your research in Maryland differ from the research you did on B. stricta in western North America?

At the moment, I don’t have any plans to continue my research in Idaho, so my work is definitely going to change. This coming year, I’m planning on doing experiments with plants in growth chambers or the greenhouse, using B. stricta and/or Arabidopsis thaliana. These controlled conditions are great for answering some questions, but ultimately I’m interested in looking at what’s happening in natural populations, since that’s where evolution is actually occuring. So this year I’m also going to be working on finding a new study system that grows in this area, so that I can work outside without having to fly across the country.

Which chemical defense do you find the most interesting and why?

I’ve worked on glucosinolates for a long time, so I do really like them and find them very interesting from a research perspective. Another defense that I think is really interesting but I’m very glad I don’t work with is furanocoumarins; they bind to DNA in skin cells and then activate in the presence of UV light, causing nasty rashes or blisters. A much more benign defense that I like is tannins, which are found in tea, coffee, or unripe fruits, and are responsible for giving you that dry-mouth feel—that’s because they’re binding to your salivary proteins. Sorry, that’s not just one answer—I have a hard time picking a favorite!

Can you tell me about your research?

I like to call myself a plankton ecologist with deeper interests in how marine microorganisms respond and adapt to their rapidly changing environments. Specifically, I am interested in those that have adopted a mixotrophic lifestyle (such as ciliates and dinoflagellates, which are unicellular plankton). Mixotrophy is broadly defined as the combined ability to acquire energy from light and consumption of organic material within a single organism. I research mixotrophs of both the New England shelf and the Chesapeake Bay and will continue to target these locations. I am particularly interested in the woefully under sampled winter months, which is when both areas are experiencing warmer than average temperatures. In my research, I leverage long-term data sets to understand the natural history of these organisms along with physiological measurements, both in situ (in their natural environment) and in the lab with cultures, to understand the ‘why’ of their seasonal trends. I do this with a combination of modern molecular tools, imaging flow cytometry (imagine an underwater microscope constantly taking pictures of these cells), as well as traditional plankton sampling methods, all of which compliment each other.

How did you get to where you are now, in terms of your education and training in science?

I grew up in household of scientists who, at some point in their careers researched the Chesapeake Bay so you can say I have come full circle. There is an aquatic research laboratory located on Jefferson Patterson Park in Calvert County, MD that became my second home and the researchers were my second family. I was raised to respect the Chesapeake Bay and appreciate its natural resources.  In middle school and high school, I researched the effects of harmful algal blooms on native oyster populations. For my undergraduate work at Hood College, I continued to do research, shifting to larger invertebrates, from invasive crayfish to sea anemones. During the summer after my junior year, I became a Summer Student Fellow at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and this fantastic internship was the major stepping-stone for where I am now. My summer advisor, Dr. Heidi Sosik, encouraged me to explore a project that evolved into my Ph.D. thesis, studying the natural history of ciliate micrograzers on the New England shelf. I was introduced to more than just ciliates, as her lab was rooted in bio-optics and oceanographic instrumentation. I was encouraged to tinker with various available instruments by a WHOI researcher, Dr. Robert Olson, and even though I did not have an engineering background, I found confidence in my abilities to make what I needed.  For a portion of my thesis, I developed new imaging flow cytometry instrumentation to detect more complete populations of ciliates than previous instruments could. During my time at WHOI, I was also able to participate in oceanographic cruises in places like the Gulf of Maine and the Arctic Ocean. After my thesis, I did a postdoc with Drs. Sairah Malkin and Greg Silsbe at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science (UMCES) Horn Point Laboratory, studying the quantitative role of mixotrophic dinoflagellates in the Chesapeake Bay; work I am continuing now.

What research do you plan to conduct in Maryland?

As I mentioned above, I am interested in wintertime mixotrophic microorganisms. In particular, I am studying the Chesapeake Bay dinoflagellate, Heterocapsa rotundata, that uses mixotrophy as a tool to have a competitive advantage during a time of year when sunlight is low. With collaborators at the UMCES Horn Point Laboratory, I am conducting seasonal surveys of this organism in the Bay to quantify its role in wintertime carbon flows. I am also interested in the molecular underpinnings of mixotrophy and plan to explore these questions with samples taken from the surveys along with culture experiments to induce mixotrophy in this organism.  I welcome any student who is interested in experimental culture work!

What is your favorite aquatic organism and why?

What a question! While the mixotrophic ciliate Mesodinium rubrum is ‘flashy’ in function (it can steal and divide chloroplasts from its prey), my favorite is the mixotroph Laboea strobila, which I would say is ‘flashy’ in looks. It has a very distinct morphology, which makes it a prime candidate for imaging flow cytometry. During my Ph.D. thesis, I called it ‘the one that got away’ because even though it exhibited amazingly regular patterns, I was never able to get out in the field at the right time to answer all of the questions I had about this predictability.

What classes will you teach in the fall? Which are you most excited to teach?

In the fall, I will be teaching Principles of Biology. I will be primarily teaching topics like ‘eukaryotic cells’ and ‘photosynthesis’, which happen to be near and dear to me. I am most excited to teach my Oceanography course in the spring. I hope to build on Coastal Ecology and move towards open water environments where nutrients are limited and light can be low (at depth). The oceans are also significant regulators of our global climate so understanding this ‘last frontier’ is crucial.

At St. Mary’s, the students have an unofficial slogan “Keep St. Mary’s Weird.” Do you have any endearing quirks that fit with this motto?

I am always down for a Sci-Fi movie marathon and I’ve been known to frequent a few Comic-Cons!

Is there anything I didn’t mention that you’d like to add?

As I mentioned above, I love to tinker. So if there is anyone who is interested in trying to develop new tools for the lab, please stop by!