Bio

I grew up in West Sussex, England and have since lived in California, Washington and Oregon. I attended the University of Puget Sound (UPS) in Tacoma, Washington for my undergraduate, where I graduated with a B.S. in Biology.

 

At UPS I focused on marine ecology issues and particularly invasive species. I completed a senior environmental studies project on the biodiversity and effect of invasive species on a local city park. My senior honors thesis was on the interaction between local sea star species and two species of mussel, one of which was invasive to the Puget Sound region.

After finishing my Bachelors degree, I studied at the Bamfield Marine Sciences Centre in British Columbia where my focus turned towards endangered species. There I completed a study on the behavioral response of the Marbled Murrelet to the floating corkline that is associated with a gillnet. Murrelets are often caught in gillnets and my study examined the behavioral responses to the line above water. While in Bamfield, I also completed a study on island biogeography, examining a pattern of nested recruitment of organisms in tidepools based on their volume.

 

My current research interests are with endangered species biology, and conservation biology based on ecosystem wide processes. At HPU my research focuses on evaluating the threat to Black-footed and Laysan Albatross from ocean debris such as plastic. I am interested in the link between Albatross feeding locations and the oceanic processes that accumulate both the natural Albatross food source and plastic debris.