My scientific background is almost entirely in the lab, but I'd describe my interests as empirical evolutionary theory and I'm also starting to develop my skill set and literacy in mathematical theory approaches.  Broadly, I'm interested in the conditions that affect the (co)evolution of virulence, niche breadth, diversification, emergence, and adaptability in infectious diseases particurally. In the wider biological literature, I am extremely excited about theoretically and conceptually driven evolution research, especially when it has a predictive bent or sheds light on the processes underlying broad patterns.​
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The Geometry of Trade-Offs to Host Resistance
Part of my research explores the nuances of the trade-off between development time and resistance to viral infection in the Plodia interpunctella model system. Through working with several long-term experimental evolution lines, I've been exploring the genetic architecture, symmetry, and shape of the trade-off and how it functions under different environmental conditions. 

Host Genetic Diversity and Host Breadth Evolution
Part of my research focuses on the role of host genetic diversity on host breadth evolution in our plodia interpunctella and granulosis virus. I've shown that the virus can evolve to specialize on different inbred genotypes of host, and I'm continuing this work to examine how host population structure and contact rates between types bias the system towards selecting for generalism and specialism.

Coevolution and Diversification Patterns
Theory on trade-offs and niche breadth evolution underpin our theories for the maintenance of diversity in natural systems. Soon, I plan to extend my research to experimental evolution with coevolutionary systems (our moth and baculovirus system and bacteria and phage systems) to explore how populations generate and maintain diversity.

Collaborations
With my work testing theory in experimental evolution systems, I sit on the nexus of theory and empirical work. As such, I've gained a lot of comfort translating between fields and have been lucky enough to participate in several collaborations that allowed me to share those skills. With a postdoc mathematician in my lab, I was able to help build a biologically informed model and find empirical examples in the literature to test the model's predictions. With empirical field researchers in my lab, I was able link their work's results to the theoretical literature. I welcome more of these sorts of collaborations in the future!