PhD Student
Advisor: Christina Bergey
Program: Human Evolutionary Sciences (HES)
Research interests: Lemur evolution and adaptive radiation, evolutionary genetics, population genetics, ecological impacts on evolution
I am interested in understanding how ecological variables shaped the genetic evolution of lemurs after they arrived on Madagascar. I earned my B.A. in Anthropology from Boston University in 2020. My undergraduate research used phylogenetic methods to understand the evolution of the vomeronasal system (the chemosensory system that detects pheromones) in primates. Through this research, I became interested in lemurs specifically, and how their olfactory systems evolved differently from the rest of the primate clade. For my PhD research I want to further investigate the genetic evolution of these unique primates in order to better understand how they adapted to fill a variety of niches they encountered on Madagascar. I also hope to contribute to the conservation of lemurs through my research because they are the most endangered group of mammals on Earth.
