About Me

My Childhood

I was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, and spent most of my time as a rambunctious child either drawing in my sketchbooks or getting lost along the tall grasses along the bay front as I lived just a block from the marshlands. I grew up watching National Geographic cassette tapes and other animal shows like Zoboomafoo, so it really was no surprise that I developed an interest in the natural world around me.

My father has a captain's license and every few years I had the privilege of being taken on sailing trips around the tropics in which I witnessed first hand the plight of coral reefs. I visited the same reef every 5 or so years to see it slowly bleach and wither away. These trips were crucial in developing my sense of urgency and responsibility into preserving and bolstering wildlife that I had once seen flourish so beautifully. I knew I was going to be a researcher one day, and that I was going into ecology and conservation with a deep rooted passion.

Undergraduate Years

I went to University of California, Santa Cruz for my undergraduate years (Go Slugs!) and truly grew into myself as a marine biologist. I had spent multiple summers during my high school years taking community college courses and doing volunteer hours at the Bodega bay Marine Labs. I had started my time at UCSC with 80 transfer units and hit the ground running taking sophomore level classes within the tail end of my freshman year. I had one of the hardest summers of my life, in which I gained 5 scuba diving certifications within a time period of about 3 months: rescue diver, drysuit diver, nitrox diver, master diver, and scientific diver.

All of these certifications were in preparation for one of the most pivotal classes in my life, Kelp Forest Ecology with Mark Carr and Peter Raimondi. The scientific diving certification was a prerequisite as we would be conducting our own individual research during this class at the Hopkins Marine Station. This class is where I truly fell in love with the California coast and the intricacies it has being an incredibly interconnected ecosystem, and where I developed my research experience (and cried many nights over my research paper drafts). I am incredibly thankful for this class and so glad I took the opportunity when I could, as not only a few months later the Covid19 pandemic hit.

And while almost all the classes available online I had already taken during my previous years, and all the in person research classes I dearly wanted to take being cancelled, I was able to be in an amazing Animal Behavior class that was cotaught by Bruce Lyon and Barry Sinervo. It was worth being swabbed two times a week and wearing a mask in the field, as I was able to do hands-on observations on elephant seals, finches, ensatina salamanders, and anemones. I was also able to pair this class with another, Scientific Illustration, in which I illustrated many of the animal behavior studies I was actively working on. My time at UCSC was incredibly fundamental as to who I am right now, and to this day being in the redwood forest and seeing a banana slug will always bring a smile to my face. I learned a lot those 4 years.

Gap Years

After graduating UCSC during the peak of the pandemic, I spent a few years navigating the marine biology job market. I spent a summer working at the Pennington Marine Science Center, in which I assisted kickstarting the aquarium facilities post the pandemic shutdown. I learned how to maintain a 5,000+ gallon saltwater aquarium as well as navigating permits in which to capture new specimens for the exhibits. I volunteered at the Monterey Bay Aquarium where I learned that I thoroughly enjoyed teaching the public about all things aquatic ecology. This guided me to the Marine Science Institute in Redwood City, where I would work for them for nearly a full year as a marine science instructor teaching children from Kindergarten all the way to College about marine life. My biggest highlights were manning the 60ft research vessel to conduct otter trawls in which we caught and identified many San Francisco Bay native species before release back into the water. I was taught how to wrangle leopard sharks and detangle bat rays from nets. It was during this time in which I received my acceptance to SFSU for grad school.

Graduate School

I am currently a 3rd year at San Francisco State University, under the Interdisciplinary Marine and Estuarine Sciences program. I am in the Hines/Simones/Jahncke lab in which I am conducting an invertebrate survey study across San Francisco Bay with the context of evaluating prey accessibility for future southern sea otter reintroduction efforts. I am still collecting my data in the field, but will be finishing up by the end of summer and am excited to begin data analysis. I have given a short presentation at the Southern Sea Otter Research Update Meeting (SSORUM 2026) about my thesis work and have taken several SFSU undergraduate students with me into the field to bolster their research experience. I hope to continue down this path to obtaining a PhD and ultimately becoming a professor, as I do truly enjoy teaching others about the amazing natural world around us and fostering curiosity in future fellow researchers.