Who am I?
I have been drawn to the natural world for as long as I can remember, even during periods when I did not yet imagine a career in biology. Right out of high school, I worried that I would never be comfortable with dissections, and that fear was enough to keep me away from the discipline altogether. Years later, when I returned to school to finish my undergraduate degree, I realized that my love of this subject had outgrown my hesitation. I found my way back to biology and entered graduate school intending to pursue a career in wildlife conservation. However, when I taught my first introductory biology lab (which was a requirement of my degree), I felt completely at home in the classroom.
That realization reshaped the trajectory of my life. During graduate school, I sought opportunities to develop as an instructor, which ultimately led me to a faculty position at Sonoma State University, where I spent the next ten years teaching undergraduate biology and environmental studies across multiple departments. The experiences I had at Sonoma State helped define my identity as an educator, and I continue to maintain collaborative relationships with many former colleagues as part of various communities of practice.
Today, I am a tenure-track faculty member in the Department of Life and Earth Sciences at the College of Marin, where I teach introductory biology courses for both majors and non-majors. My work is grounded in natural history and field-based inquiry, with an emphasis on helping students connect biological concepts to the living systems that surround them. I am especially drawn to interdisciplinary approaches that bring together science, art, and place-based learning. Alongside my teaching, I am a digital illustrator focused on morphologically accurate portraits of plants, animals, and fungi. Through my artwork, I aim to help others see the beauty, charm, and majesty of the natural world in the same way that I do.
Outside of the classroom, I am a first soprano with the Marin Oratorio, iNaturalist ambassador, gamer, and horror film enthusiast.