About me
I am currently working as a Statistician Modeler in the COVID Modeling Team at the California Department of Public Health. Prior to that, I served as a AAAS Science and Technology Policy Fellow at USAID Office of HIV/AIDS (2020-2021). I was a post-doctoral research fellow at the National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC) from 2018-2020. I finished my Ph.D. in July of 2018 at the University of Minnesota in the Department of Ecology, Evolution & Behavior where I worked in the Craft and Forester lab groups as a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow. I completed my B.S. in Biomedical Engineering and B.A. in Spanish in 2012 at the University of Virginia.
I started my journey with science working in various veterinary hospitals as a veterinary assistant. Since then, I have performed research in a molecular biomechanical laboratory as a biomedical engineer, implemented surveys on clinical trial registration and compliance practices with the Pan American Health Organization, and combed prairie dogs for potentially plague-laden fleas. Now, as a quantitative disease ecologist, I think about how we can improve disease modeling predictions by better understanding individual differences in physiology and behavior, particularly individual movement.