About me

I am a PhD candidate in the Integrative Biology Department at UC Berkeley with the Rothfels Lab, and I am affiliated with the Specht Lab at Cornell University. I am also a trainee alumnus in a National Science Foundation (NSF) training program in interdisciplinary data sciences (DS421) and an NSF GRFP Fellow. I am interested in understanding trait evolution and adaptation in plants, the role of human influence on evolutionary processes, and the application of data sciences to social justice problems. In my dissertation, I am studying the evolution of plant underground storage organs (i.e. bulbs and tubers) across different climatic conditions. Check out my research page for more information on my current projects. I am originally from Honolulu, HI. I completed a B.A. in Biology and Environmental studies at Williams College in 2013. After finishing undergrad, I spent a year in Cusco, Peru on a Fulbright Student Research Grant where I conducted ecological and ethnobotanical research on population range and distribution of high-altitude wild medicinal plants. I then spent a year working with the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) in Panama on tropical forest ecology before moving to the Bay Area in 2015. In my free time, I enjoy baking award-winning (and often botanically or phylogenetically inspired) cookies and hiking with my rescue pup Kula.​