Roots
I am currently a Durhamite by way of Arcata, CA and originally from Boise, ID. My brother and I are the kind of people raised by parents who assigned us chores in the garden where we grew most of our own produce. Our summer vactions and long weekends were spent in some of the most pristine wilderness areas in the United States. In hind sight its not surprising to me at all that my path has always been so clear; born the daughter of an English professor and a card carrying naturalist I feel called to document and understand all the plants, fungi, and other critters of the forest that comprise my most early intimate memories. Ive continued to honor this innate curiosity by pursuing a career in plant and microbial sciences and by nurturing a budding career in the visual arts which is also heavily naturally themes. But in my heart Im still just a kid playing in the dirt and I will always miss the Idahomies.
Scientific Training
I first studied Botany and Mycology at Humboldt State University with Terry Henkel (Bs 2010, MSc 2012). Once a plant collector for the Smithsonian tasked with traversing the upper Amazon basin wilderness, Terry crafted a project for me aimed at understanding the Botanical and Mycological diversity of Guiana Shield region. Specifically, I was documenting, describing, and characterizing new species of plant associated fungi from Guyana. In 2012 I joined the lab group of Rytas Vilgalys at Duke University where Im actively learning how fungi and bacteria in the soil interact and what implications these processes have for plant health. I am looking to graduate in 2017 with my PhD in Genetics and hoping to get a big girl job where I can apply what I have been so fortunate to learn thus far to real world problems, and to train others how to do the same. My formal scientific training has left me with a passion for minutia and perfectionism that I find complements my intersts in photography and videography very well.
Photography & Vidography
I have enjoyed documenting natural landscapes, biodiversity, and important moments in the lives of loved ones since before I can remember. The first formal training I had was the Field Photography course at the Institute for Tropical Ecology and Conservation in Bocas del Toro, Panama. There, Joe Maher began enabling my artistic progress by teaching me what is possible with the right equiptment and access to new persepctives, both literally through travel, tree climbing, spellunking, and sea kayaking, and figuratively by developing an eye for identifying the perfect moment, angle, exposure, flash, etc. Since then I have become proficient in Adobe Photoshop and Premier through many hours of trial and error with some help from Lynda's lovely tutorials. Im currently shooting with a Nikon D5000.
