About Me

Welcome to my site! This site is meant to further communicate my future and current research to my peers, curious peoples, and friends. Here I post about my research findings, field experiences, regularly blog my journey, and share cool herpetofauna. 

My interests primarily are rooted in herpetofauna. I am specifically interested in behavior, physiology, and trade-offs. I'm currently a graduate student at Texas Tech University investigating presence of spot-tailed earless lizards and their escape behavior.

I found herpetology about half-way though my undergraduate career at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. I was pursuing an undergraduate degree in Wildlife and Fisheries Science, concentrating in wildlife management. Though, I hadn't decided on what specifically I wanted to do with the degree just yet. I knew that I wanted to be a biologist of some-sort, though the picture wasn't as clear as it is now.

I needed experience to gain traction the field. I joined the Tennessee Amphibian Monitoring Program because it seemed like something new and interesting. During my first route of the program, I experienced my first level 3 chorus of Spring peepers and upland chorus frogs - I was blown away by the amplitude of their collective calls. I couldn't believe there were so many of these tiny creatures creating that sound. Honestly, it's cheesy, from that point on I knew that herpetology (Actually, I didn't even know "herpetology" was a thing. I just knew that, dang, these little frogs are nuts!) was something I was going to pursue - my interest in this taxa continues to grow till this day.