I am a lab technician in the Song Laboratory of Insect Systematics and Evolution, affiliated with the ASU NEON Biorepository and the NSF Behavioral Plasticity Research Institute. Due to my background in applied math and computer science, I began working for Dr. Hojun Song as an undergraduate researcher in bioinformatics at Texas A&M. Since then, I have come to ASU to continue my work on our current project that seeks to identify the genetic mechanisms behind Locust Phase Polyphenism in the desert locust, Schistocerca gregaria, using genomic, transcriptomic, and metagenomic data.
I am originally from Austin, Texas and attended Texas A&M University for my B.S. in Applied Mathematics and Computational Science. During my time at Texas A&M, I worked on 2 additional research projects prior to joining the Song Lab. First, I worked with Dr. Spencer Jones (TAMU Oceanography), Dr. Darren Henrichs (TAMU Biology), and Dr. Andrea Bonito (TAMU Mathematics) to study the speeds of dinoflagellates, Prorocentrum texanum, during vertical migration. Following this, I studied under Dr. Bill Murphy studying the evolutionary history and genetic impact of highly conserved deletions across 200+ mammalian species using the ZooNomia Project database.