I am a second-year Ph.D. student in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. My research in the Bronstein Lab investigates how global warming affects species interactions and specifically mutualisms, mutually beneficial interspecific interactions. I draw upon both empirical and theoretical tools to uncover and predict how mutualisms across diverse ecological systems and ecological scales might persist in the face of anthropogenic warming. Before entering doctoral studies at the University of Arizona (UA), I was a social sciences researcher in the Department of Anthropology and The Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford University. In this role, I worked in an interdisciplinary team on conservation and development challenges in southern Costa Rica where I co-developed a community-based environmental leadership and education program for rural, underserved youth, and additionally helped establish baseline ecological monitoring research for a novel agroforestry project with local farmers in the region.

My UA/NASA Space Grant project will provide a year-long mentoring experience for underserved, high school-aged youth in a program built around two simultaneous parts. First, students will participate in and complete self-directed, outdoor field science research projects while learning about and engaging with the local environment. Second, students will enroll in a credit-bearing course at the UA (cost-free). This course is created specifically for the participating students and will provide an introduction to higher education, the scientific process and research, and include visits to UA laboratories and research facilities. The program will be designed to center on the students’ needs and their personal and educational development, providing them social and academic bridges towards higher education. Students will be guided and mentored on and off-campus by a team of UA undergraduate and graduate student scientists, as well local community-based agencies. Overall, my role is to facilitate sustained engagement with science alongside positive personal and social development through strengthening meaningful connections between local youth, the university, and community-based organizations.