News
January 2023 I began a position as a Research Fellow in Ecology at the Institute of Ecology & Earth Sciences at the University of Tartu (Estonia).
December 2022 Our latest manuscript about tropical tree seedling ecology is now available as a preprint. Read it here.
August 2022 Our manuscript about plant-mycorrhizal interactions during pathogen epidemics is now available in New Phytologist. Read it here.
January 2022 Our new manuscript about pathogen genetic diversity and epidemic dynamics in wild plant populations is now available in The American Naturalist. Find it here.
February 2021 I was awarded a one-year Post-doctoral Fellowship by the University of Zurich, to continue my work on how mycorrhizal fungi influence disease in wild plant populations.
December 2020 I presented my research on how mycorrhizal fungi influence patterns of disease in wild plants online (at the Zurich-Basel Plant Science Center Symposium)!
August 2020 Another field season gone by, spent sampling root and soil microbes in the Swiss Alps with the Laine lab (this time, socially-distanced!). Check out our research here.
February 2020 I am learning a lot (and cross-country skiing for the first time) at the World Biodiversity Forum at Davos.
December 2019 Besides writing manuscripts, I have enjoyed attending local symposia this fall, at Agroscope and the Zurich-Basel Plant-Science Center.
August 2019 A farewell trip to Finland, to attend ESEB 2019 and *Finnish* a field experiment (pun intended). Now, off to the Wild Plant Pathosystems conference in Frankfurt, Germany.
July 2019 A collaborative field project to study the links between biodiversity and disease takes me high in to the Swiss Alps with the Laine lab. Check out our research here.
June 2019 I am briefly back in Finland to collect experimental data on whether association between plants and mutualists affects disease.
May 2019 A beautiful spring week spent visiting collaborators at the University of Tartu, Estonia, to learn bioinformatics and ecological analysis of fungal community data. Thanks Maarja Öpik & team! Check out their research here.
April 2019 A fun experimental assay in the greenhouse and lab allows me to probe phenotypic variation in disease resistance among genotypes of a wild plant species.
March 2019 My new paper on how soil microbes affect tropical tree diversity is out in PNAS! The article can be found here.
January 2019 I am excited to continue my post-doctoral research in the Laine lab in our new home, at the University of Zurich, Switzerland!
August 2018 Field work continues with a sampling trip to the picturesque Åland Islands, Finland.
June 2018 The field season begins! I am setting up a two-year field experiment in central Finland.
November 2017 I am analyzing data on pathogen genetic composition in wild plant populations in the historic Åland Islands (Finland) metapopulation field site.
September 2017 I am excited to begin a position as a post-doctoral researcher in the Laine lab at the University of Helsinki!
August 2017 I successfully defended my dissertation and earned a Ph.D. in Ecology, Evolution, & Organismal Biology from The Ohio State University.
January 2017 I am visiting Pennslyvania State University for a semester, to learn genetic sequencing techniques from collaborators Jim Marden & Howard Fescemyer. Check out their research here.
September 2016 I am again in residence at Yale University, after finishing the final field season of my dissertation research in Panama. What an adventure!