I received my B.S. at the University of Saint Francis (IN) in Secondary Education Biology in 2005. I am currently a third-year Ph.D. student studying Oceanography at Old Dominion University supported by the Hall-Bonner Minority Fellowship. My area of research deals with grazing by the toxic red tide-forming dinoflagellate, Karenia brevis, in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Florida. I am currently working on this project under Dr. Margaret Mulholland, my advisor. The goal of my research is to quantify the amount of nutrients K. brevis obtains from grazing on picoplankton like the ubiquitous cyanobacterium Synechococcus. My research has a laboratory culture-based approach as well as a field component.
My research interests include: Phytoplankton ecology, predator prey relationships within the microbial loop, harmful algal blooms (HABs), and nutrient cycling in coastal waters.
