I began my academic career at the College of Lake county in Grayslake, IL. There, I took a general zoology course with the then dean of biology, Dr. Michael Corn, who hired me to maintain a sizeable collection of live reptiles for educational purposes. I received an A.S. in Biological Sciences from CLC, and transferred to Southern Illinois University's zoology program in the spring of 2005.
Shawnee National Forest (southern Illinois)
Elaphe obsoleta from southern IL
At Southern Illinois University, I volunteered as a field technician for Dr. Brook Burr's Ichthyology lab and Dr. George Feldhammer's mammology lab. In these labs, I worked on projects involving the migratory behavior and demography of Lampetra apyptera (least brook lamprey) and the effect of controlled burning on the population dynamics of Peromyscus spp. (white-footed mouse), respectively. I also worked as an assistant curator for SIU's fluid vertebrate museum where my task was to key out and determine latitude and longitude for a large collection of Mexican amphibians and reptiles. Most of my time at SIU, however, was spent working as a lab and field technician in the physiological ecology laboratory of Dr. Michael Sears. During my time in Dr. Sears' lab, we collaborated on a project examining the effect of reproductive condition on thermoregulatory behavior in squamate reptiles.
In the summer of 2006, after my 3rd semester at SIU, I enrolled in a "tropical herpetology" field course taught by Dr. Greg Mayor from the University of Wisconson-Madison and Eric Hielmann, director of research and conservation for the Racine Zoo. This course was held at La Suerte Biological Field Station in Heredia province, Costa Rica, and at this location I conducted an independent research project on niche partitioning in an anuran community.
La Suerte Biological Field Station
\Agalychnis saltator
Tide pools on the Atlantic Coast, Costa Rica
In the Spring of 2007, I accepted a research assistantship under Dr. Jonathan Campbell at the University of Texas-Arlington's Amphibian and Reptile Diversity Research Center (ARDRC), where I am presently pursuing a master's degree in biology. In May of 2007, I joined Dr. Campbell, Dr. Joe Mendelson from Zoo Atlanta, and Carl Franklin (ARDRC collection manager) on a collecting trip to central Veracruz, Mexico.
In the Spring of 2006 I took a herpetology course at SIU taught by a post-doc at the time, Dr. Chad Montgomery, who is now an assistant professor at Truman State University in Missouri. In the Spring of 2007, Dr. Montgomery offered me the opportunity to serve as the lead field technician on a project examining the ecology and natural history of a critically endangered species of lizard, Ctenosaura melanosterna, from Honduras.
High elevation site in central Veracruz, Mexico
Applying "newskin" to a pit-tagged iguana
Ctenosaura melanosterna
For the past two years (2007 and 2008), I have continued to work in the Cayos Cochinos Islands of Honduras, in conjunction with Chad Montogomery (Truman State University), Scott Boback (Dickinson College), Bob Reed (USGS invasive species program), Steve Green (University of Kent, UK), Operation Wallacea (a conservation organization based in the UK) and the Honduran Coral Reef Foundation on projects involving the herpetofuana of this region. In addition to the C. melanosterna research, other ongoing projects include: A long-term examination of the ecology, natural history, and genetics of the Cayos Cochinos dwarf boa constrictor (Boa constrictor imperator), and my own work involving body size evolution and thermoregulatory behavior in native Anolis communities.
Weighing an Anolis lemurinus on Cayo Grande
Collecting physiological data in the "dry lab" on Cayo Pequeno