Who I am
I recently graduated from the University of Oklahoma with a Bachelor's degree in zoology in May 2015. During my last few semesters, I split my time finishing my coursework, researching at the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History, and working at various other jobs. I also worked with the Plant Biology Department at the University of Oklahoma starting in November 2013, where I surveyed managed and unmanaged trees in parks to assess if the drought has affected their growth or health in anyway. During my research with plant biology, I became knowledgeable in different tree species of Oklahoma and how to measure morphometric characteristics of those trees. I was hired by the Herpetology department in the Sam Noble Museum of Natural History in February 2015 after I had been volunteering there for about two years. During the spring, we took a few weekend field trips to southeast Oklahoma to complete biodiversity surveys and swab amphibians for the dangerous Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (chytrid fungus) that can grow in amphibian skin. I also have swabbed approximately 600 different anuran museum specimens to assess if they contained remnants of the amphibian disease, to compare those results to the swabs we attained this spring. I am currently enjoying my time at the Biological Station Caño Palma in Costa Rica for 6 weeks. I am a mixed taxa intern, dividing my time learning about mammals, herps, birds, and helping monitor nesting sea turtles on the beach. I love being out in the field and learning about the different organisms that live around us. Learning more about animal behavior and different habitats is extremely exciting to me, and I would love to work in conservation or a national park.