About Me

I am a first year PhD student at Texas A&M University.  I graduated from St. Olaf College in Northfield, MN in 2017 with a B.A. in Biology.  I then went to Illinois State University where I completed a M.S. in plant ecology in 2021 under the direction of Dr. Victoria Borowicz with a thesis titled “In Defense of Plants: Salicylic Acid in a Host-Parasite-Pathogen System.”  During which time I completed a graduate certificate in geographic information systems.

I am interested in the ecological factors impacting pathogenesis,  especially as it relates to spatial patterns of pathogen interaction in both agricultural and natural settings.  In the Chappell lab, I have been working on characterizing the environment around cotton fleahopper collection sites to determine if the land use in areas surrounding fleahopper populations impacts the abundance of fleahoppers.