Conservation and natural history

​My conservation and natural history research has mostly focused on reptiles, amphibians, and insects. In 2014, I was part of a team that surveyed endangered frogs in Puerto Rico for a fungal pathogen called Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd), which is a major contributor to global amphibian declines. Two years later, I worked on a project that tested Anolis lizards for malaria parasites in Costa Rica. While malaria is known to be deadly in humans and birds, it is still unclear to what extent malaria infections affect lizards, or even how prevalent these infections are.

I also briefly worked as a field technician for The Nature Conservancy on Santa Cruz Island in California. My team's goals were to manage the invasive ants that had spread throughout the island as well as to monitor the native ant diversity and make sure that these vulnerable local populations were not declining.

I have also published a couple of short notes on the natural history observations that I made during my ecological field work. For example, I observed how harvestmen consume tree frog eggs, and how blind snakes are eaten and excreted by toads without observable signs of digestion.