My career path has been winding and worldwide. 

I grew up in a small town in Alabama and always loved animals and being outside whether I was tracking deer behind my house or making a slip-n-slide during a hurricane (don't worry it was only a category 1). 

I wanted to move away for college and chose the University of Dayton in Ohio. Towards the end of my senior year, I was feeling really lost on how to use my biochemistry degree. I took a chance and was accepted to the reproductive biology internship at Disney's Animal Kingdom, which honestly changed my life. I had no idea people were using science to help conserve animals in the wild and improve welfare for animals in human care. 

After I finished a year at Disney, I was ready for a new adventure with less year-round debilitating heat. I moved to Washington, DC (still very hot and humid in the summer!) and slept in my college friend's sun room until I found a job working in an environmental lab and began volunteering at the National Zoo studying panda (both giant and red) behavior. I also managed a bakery. I like keeping my schedule full.

After a few years in DC, I was ready for my next step and moved to Manchester, England to study for a master's in conservation biology. I did a work placement as a zookeeper on the giraffe section at the Chester Zoo. I completed my thesis research and field work on black rhino ecology and reproduction in the Laikipia District of Kenya. 

After finishing my MS, I moved back to the US to work a short-term position as the behavior and endocrinology research assistant at the Brookfield Zoo in Brookfield, Illinois. I started their dolphin behavior and endocrinology project in the Animal Welfare Department, and it doesn't get much better than watching dolphins play and interact all day. When that position ended, I very conveniently accepted a research associate position just down the road in Chicago at the Lincoln Park Zoo where I managed the endocrinology lab. 

Remember how I said I like to keep my schedule full? Well, after a couple years of lab work, field research in Africa was calling to me again. So now I am also a PhD candidate in the ecology and evolution tract in the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Broadly, my dissertation research is focused on how humans impact the reproduction of animals in the wild and in human care. 

While working on my dissertation, I have continued working and gaining new skills. I worked as a teaching assistant for my university and really enjoy helping the undergraduate students navigate the course and their future education and careers. I also worked as a wildlife ranger in a national park, a sea turtle technician in Florida, and a field technician for an Atlantic sturgeon project.