September 2025: With no fieldwork this summer, it was a summer of writing and working groups! I traveled to New Mexico for a Santa Fe Institute micro-working group on diversity-stability relationships in North American birds and to Colorado for a USGS Powell Center working group on how climate change is influencing the stability of foundation species. In Santa Barbara, I continued working on projects from two previous working groups, looking at: (1) how diversity influences multi trophic stability and (2) how macroalgal diversity influences stability on tropical reefs.
February 2025: Check out the coverage of our coral-crab 2025 study by: BBC Wildlife, Cosmos, the Nicholas School of the Environment, Earth.com, Oceanographic Magazine, and more!
November 2024: I learned about new research going on across the MCR and presented the results of a previous experiment in Moorea. As the MCR graduate student representative, I also led a workshop for graduate students and presented an update on the MCR graduate students' year.
October 2024: As part of SFI's Complexity-GAINs School I got the opportunity to travel to Sète, France, with a group of other students from around world. Over the course of two weeks we got to hear an amazing series of lectures from experts in ecological complexity--an experience that has really broadened and changed the way I see ecology. I also got to meet an amazing group of fellow graduate students and hear about the research they're working on--I'm coming home refreshed and re-inspired! Thank you, SFI!
September 2024: I spent a week at the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS) to kick off the first year of the LTER SSECR program. Thanks to the awesome organizers, mentors, and teachers, we learned a lot about how to collaborate effectively and how to do synthesis research on large scales.
August 2024: I traveled to Fort Collins, CO, to participate in a USGS Powell Center working group on how climate change is influencing the stability of foundation species. It was an amazing week where I learned a ton from the other group members. I'm excited to see what we do next!
August 2024: I traveled to Long Beach this summer to present the results of my first dissertation chapter--in short, nutrient enrichment strengthened the mutualism between Pocillopora corals and their mutualists, which mitigated the negative impacts of nutrient enrichment
April 2024: UCSB undergraduates Emma Holm-Olsen and Lauren Rappa present the results of their research at the UCSB Undergraduate Research Symposium--go Emma and Lauren!
March 2024: I'm starting to get preliminary coral histology and physiology results--more details coming soon!
September 2023: With the help of an amazing committee, I passed my written and oral exams and became a PhD candidate in the spring. Then, I hopped on a plane for the last big summer field season of my dissertation, where I set up a large-scale experiment looking at how structural legacies influence surviving corals.
September 2022: This summer of fieldwork was spent: (1) taking down a yearlong experiment that focused on reef mutualisms and (2) surveying the lagoon for signs of coral disease (i.e., coral lesions). With the help of two awesome undergraduates, another graduate student, and the mentorship of Dr. Greta Aeby, we surveyed 13 sites along the north shore, documenting any abnormal coral coloration, growth, or tissue loss. These surveys will be the first of their kind in Moorea and provide valuable information on what kinds of diseases are impacting corals in the region.
April 2022: Labmates and I head to Moorea to work on our lab experiment, RECHARGE, and survey reefs around the island.
January 2022: Our paper on how predators influence coral disease was just published in the journal Coral Reefs! We discuss how predators like corallivorous snails can exacerbate coral disease, while certain predators actually slow disease, perhaps through wound debridement.
September 2021: I spent three months this summer in Moorea, French Polynesia, kicking off the first field season of my PhD. While there, I collaborated with the Stier (UCSB) and Osenberg (UGA) labs, who taught me about the coral-associated fishes and invertebrates that live on the Pocillopora corals in Moorea (and many other things, including how to drive boats around coral).
November 2020: In our new paper, we look at how the density of the marsh periwinkle snail (Littoraria irrorata) affects snail grazing impacts on salt marsh cordgrass (Spartina alterniflora). We found that increasing densities of snails exponentially increased the grazing intensity per stem, but linearly decreased Spartina biomass.
October 2020: In a paper led by Liz Shaver (scientist at The Nature Conservancy and Silliman Lab alumn), we show how protected coral reefs in Florida have fewer corallivorous snails (Coralliophila abbreviata), which we propose may be because of increased predator diversity inside protected areas.
July 2020: In a review led by The Nature Conservancy's Simon Reeves, we examine oyster reef research and identify potential positive interactions on reefs that may be useful for reef restoration. Read the whole article here
July 2020: I orally defended my Master's research at Duke and submitted the written thesis on how a Xanthid crab, simulated wounding, and algal contact can influence disease occurrence in branching corals on the Great Barrier Reef! More details on what we found coming soon.
July 2020: In a review led by Silliman lab postdoc Carter Smith, we look at what research has been done on living shorelines and the current state of living shoreline research.
July 2020: In collaboration with the Ainsworth lab at UNSW and the Silliman lab at Duke University, we talk about about how "interstitial associates" (i.e. organisms that spend most or all of their lives on/within corals) influence the coral holobiont in our new paper out in Trends in Microbiology.
June 2020: NSF-INTERN grant awarded to spend the summer researching invertebrate biodiversity on North Carolinian oyster reefs using metabarcoding data from Autonomous Reef Monitoring Structures deployed in conjunction with the Global ARMS project.
June 2019: Through a combination of field experiments and meta-analyses, we show that salt marshes do reduce shoreline erosion and remain an important component of coastal protection in our recent paper, led by Brian Silliman
April 2019: In my first paper as a part of the Silliman Lab, we look at how positive species interactions can be leveraged to enhance salt marsh and mangrove restoration.
February 2019: In collaboration with Kathy Gerst of the USA-National Phenology Network and local expert Bill Peachey, the work from my undergraduate thesis is out in print! You can read about how the flowering of a keystone desert species, the saguaro cactus (Carnegiea gigantea), may be influenced by climate here.
December 2018: Our proposal was funded to assemble a team of undergraduate students, master's students, PhD students, postdocs, and faculty to study whether we can use bioacoustic metrics to estimate oyster reef diversity. Learn more on our website: https://ecometrics.webflow.io/
October 2018: The work from my undergraduate summer research was just published in Marine Environmental Research! In the paper, led by Cat Fong, we examine how epiphytes on a common macroalgal species, Turbinaria ornata, provide food for young fish in Moorea, French Polynesia.
April 2018: In exciting news, I was awarded a three-year NSF fellowship to study marine ecology as a part of the Silliman Lab at Duke University. I'll start in North Carolina this fall, where I'll study salt marshes and coral reefs.
