I am a Ph.D. candidate from Orwigsburg, Pennsylvania. I received a B.S. in Biology from Shippensburg University in 1992. Prior to starting my graduate work, I worked as a laboratory instructor at Swarthmore College for several years. I am interested in the role of adaptation and natural selection in speciation. My thesis research centers on a pair of sister species that breed in different habitats. The smallmouth salamander, Ambystoma texanum, like most other ambystomatids, breeds in temporary ponds. Ambystoma barbouri, however, breeds in ephemeral bedrock streams in the Bluegrass region of Kentucky and surrounding states. Differences in larval morphology and behavior between these species have been shown to confer advantages in the stream environment.

For my dissertation, I am examining the phylogeographic relationship of both species using mitochondrial and nuclear markers, to distinguish between those traits that may have facilitated invasion of this novel habitat and those that arose as adaptations to it. I am also examining gene flow between species at several zones of contact between the sister species and effects of this flow on habitat-specific adaptive behavior and life history traits. Using these approaches, I hope to gain insight into the role of ecological factors in creating differences between species and the limits of organisms to adapt to new environments. Currently, I am reconstructing the phylogenetic relationship between populations of both of these species and an outgroup, Ambystoma mabeei, based on mitochondrial and nuclear DNA markers.

This spring (2003) I am rearing multiple populations of the species, and examining variation in traits shown to enhance survival in streams.
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