My abbreviated story:

I grew up in the Illinois suburbs, venturing up into Wisconsin for fun outdoor adventures. My high school earth science teacher once told us that his goal was to "get us excited enough that we wanted to tell someone what we had learned".  Ultimately, this what has led me on my geologic journey: I want to talk about what makes Earth work, and our place in it. I want to encourage us to embrace those big questions we asked as children: "Why is the sky blue? What are stars? Why is it nighttime?". These questions that helped us try and make sense of our small world that was getting bigger.

For this reason, I consider myself a "generalist" despite my hyper-focused research.  I want to connect with every day observations we can make about the world and start a conversation.

My academic work looks at past ice ages to think about how the oceans, atmosphere, and ice interact with each other. In this way I get to think about the Wisconsin landscape as it is today, how it was before, and how it might be in the future.

I completed my undergraduate and masters degrees before realizing that I didn't know what I wanted to do next! After joining the petroleum industry for three years, and having a baby, I wanted to get back to the landscape and subject matter that I really enjoyed and began my PhD.  

I decided to have my second child while in school... and ended up with twins! I am currently living in the contradictory space between nonstop and slow-going that comes with being a student parent.