I have lived on islands for most of my life, and as such, I am primarily interested in uncovering the biodiversity of understudied taxa across understudied regions. The research I have engaged in throughout my PhD has primarily involved genetics, community ecology, evolution, reef fishes, and mesophotic coral ecosystems. I am one of the main users of the ToBo eDNA lab facility which I helped to establish in the early years of my PhD. This lab is where I spend most of my time as a graduate research assistant, processing samples collected on the National Geographic Society’s Pristine Seas expeditions. I also do bioinformatic analyses for Pristine Seas and ToBo lab metabarcoding projects, as well as population genomics studies. I am an active AAUS scientific diver, as well as an after-hours shuttle boat operator at HIMB.
Originally from Prince Edward Island (the smallest province in Canada), I studied for my BSc with advanced majors in Biology and Kinesiology at St. Francis Xavier University (StFX). After this, I worked in a few research related positions in Bermuda, Cambodia, and for the Canadian federal government before beginning the Erasmus Mundus Master Programme in Evolutionary Biology (MEME). I spent most of my time in this pan-European program studying genetics and the evolution of marine animals in Montpellier (France), Kiel (Germany), and Groningen (the Netherlands).
Check out my CV here, as well as my Google Scholar and GitHub pages below:
