About Me

I am a PhD Candidate in Freshwater and Marine Science program at the University of Wisconsin - Madison. I work in Grace Wilkinson's lab at the Center for Limnology. My research interests focus on carbon and nutrient cycling in aquatic ecosystems with high levels of anthropogenic influence. I want to understand how human activity changes how aquatic ecosystems are functioning - both directly through processes like urbanization and cultural eutrophication and indirectly through climate impacts. Right now, I am addressing these questions by studying greenhouse gas production rates, organic matter quantity and quality, and ecosystem metabolism in urban ponds around Madison, WI.

I grew up in Erie, PA and spent a lot of time interacting with the shores of Lake Erie. My interest in the environmental field was inspired by the Toledo Water Crisis of summer 2014, when a harmful algal bloom int he western basin of Lake Erie moved over the city of Toledo, OH's water intake pipe and contaminated the water source. I was struck by the fact that this could easily happen to my home town. I wanted to understand what was happening in these scummy waters and what we could do to prevent them from happening in the future. I went on to major in Environmental Resource Management (Water Science option) at Penn State University Park as a member of the Schreyer Honors College. As an undergraduate, I worked in Dr. Jon Duncan's Watershed Ecohydrology and Biogeochemistry lab studying stream metabolism in forested headwater streams. In the summers, I returned to Erie and worked as a Research Technician with the Regional Science Consortium, monitoring water quality in and around Presque Isle Bay and State Park.