I am broadly interested in individual-level variation in behavior, particularly behavior related to habitat and host selection. My current research focuses on how individual animals integrate recent experience, experience in the natal habitat, current physiological state, and the presence of other individuals to make adaptive habitat and host choices.

I use primarily two species of flies in my research. I use the walnut-infesting tephritid fly (Rhagoletis juglandis), a specialist whose larvae feed on the husks of walnut fruit, to study how larval and adult experience with fruit of differing quality influences host fruit choice by ovipositing females. I am endeavoring to determine if larval or adult experience with fruit of a given quality affects adult female morphology and physiology and if any such effects influence in turn the quality of fruit that females choose for their offspring.

I use the pomace fly Drosophila melanogaster to explore the adaptive significance of 'natal habitat preference induction,' a process observed across the animal kingdom in which animals show an increased tendency to choose habitats or hosts experienced as juveniles.