Faculty Profile

I became interested in the sea and marine biology at a very young age, devouring books and documentaries about marine life throughout my childhood. This interest persisted into adulthood, and, even though I attended college far from the ocean (Oberlin College, Ohio), led me to supplement traditional classwork with numerous marine internships and field classes during summer and winter terms between undergraduate semesters. The most memorable of these was a summer course at SFS Turks and Caicos in 2006, where I first participated in ecological field work while assisting with the tagging of sharks and sea turtles. Since then, my studies and career have been driven largely by my fascination with the ecology, evolution and behavior of marine invertebrates, especially cephalopods (octopus, cuttlefish, squid and nautilus) and other molluscs (e.g. snails, clams, chitons). For my M.S. at Western Washington University, Washington, I examined changes in shell thickness of Nucella (a genus of intertidal snail) in response to water-borne cues from predatory crabs. A few years later, I traveled overseas to Normandy, France, to attend the Université de Caen, where I studied the effects of prenatal and maternal stress on the biology and behavior of baby cuttlefish. Most recently, I have been studying the behavior and ecology of the octopods common in the tropical western Atlantic.

Areas of Expertise

• Marine ecology
• Ethology
• Cephalopod behavior

Publications