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I have nearly a decade of experience as an animal behavior researcher and have worked with a wide range of species, from honeybees and songbirds to baboons and hyenas. The overarching goal of my research is to better understand social brains in free-living animals, particularly in species that have evolved complex social lives.
I earned my PhD in Integrative Biology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in December 2023 where I explored the neural basis of individual variation in flock experience in European starlings, Sturnus vulgaris. In 2024 at Idaho State University, I worked as a staff scientist in the de la Cruz lab studying pancreatic function in mice where I implemented new molecular biology methods. I am currently a NSF Postdoctoral Fellow in the Pradhan lab at ISU. My research explores the unusual phenomenon of sexual plasticity in the serially hermaphroditic bluebanded goby, Lythrypnus dalli. I am particularly interested in how the brain and gonads are restructured in the male-to-female direction and how this is regulated by sex steroid hormones. |
