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RESEARCH INTERESTS
I earned my BS in Biology from UCLA, and after working in plant biotechnology and restoration ecology, joined the Interdisciplinary Graduate Program in Marine Science at UCSB. My PhD dissertation investigates the interactions between anthropogenic impacts, species invasions, and parasitism in San Francisco Bay's highly invaded intertidal wetlands. In this system, biodiversity declines preceded the majority of species invasions, which appear to have dealt a further blow to native marine invertebrates, resulting in some Bay-wide extirpations. The exotic species for whom "natural range" parasitism data are available appear to have escaped most of their natural parasite enemies. Interestingly, parasitism in similar native species is often reduced as well, when compared with other California embayments. My dissertation research has been supported by our lab's National Science Foundation Ecology of Infectious Diseases (NSF-EID) grant and by the University of California Marine Council Coastal Environmental Quality Initiative (CEQI).
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