About me:I am a geobiology PhD candidate in Dr. David Gold's lab at the Earth and Planetary Sciences Department of UC Davis. I use lipid biomarker proxies to study the ecology and evolution of animals. More broadly, I am interested in 1.) holobiont (i.e. host+microbiome) geobiology and 2.) the evolution of complex animal life. These topics span both applied and conceptual sciences, such as directly using lipids to trace ecological interactions throughout an ecosystem or using modern microbiomes to understand the lipid profile of a fossil.
For my PhD thesis, I am working to distinguish between the different chemical signals that are preserved in a body fossil, and to both confirm what information can actually be gained but also learn what processes can bias our interpretations. This work is highly interdisciplinary, involving: modern ecological studies, organic geochemistry of both synthetic and genuine fossils, and (meta)genomics. I am also working on using these same principles to develop a new technique for monitoring the health of vulnerable modern ecosystems by leveraging how animals can connect different locations. I conduct my work both on the main UCD campus and also at the Bodega Marine Lab. |
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