Lab Members

My research interests center around maintaining a sustainable agriculture system. Intercropping provides a higher level of diversity that may promote a more stable community with less pressure from pests and weeds. My goals are to detail these interactions and implement them in forage systems.

I am interested in how community-level trophic interactions are altered by the varied responses of arthropod guilds to agrochemical exposure.

I am interested in community interactions occurring within agroecosystems and the management innovations we can glean from them.

I am interested in intraspecific cooperation and conflict in both social and sexual contexts. I have previously studied the costs and benefits of group living in spiders, as well as the effects of sexual cannibalism on mate choice. My current research examines sexual behavior in the goldenrod gall fly and how its host plant, a voyeur of fly sex pheromone, influences sexual selection.

I am the Research Tech for the Tooker Lab. I manage our daily lab and field research activities. I have a wide interest in applying ecological principals to agricultural systems, and communicating the research results of applying these principals to the farming community and the general public.

(2009-present)