I am a graduate student studying with Dan Papaj in the Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology at the University of Arizona. I obtained my B.S. in Biology and minored in Animal Behavior and Chemistry at Indiana University.

I am primarily interested in the proximate mechanisms of behavioral ontogeny, specifically the physiological mechanisms of learning in butterflies. I am interested in how environmental conditions as a juvenile affect the ability for an individual to learn as an adult. However, learning can also be costly and induce trade-offs. Therefore, I am also interested in how environmental conditions during different life stages of an individual affect the degree of trade-offs between learning and physiological functions in the adult and its offspring.