Calculating risk to local species reflects our own vulnerabilities to climate change.
As part of my graduate coursework at Humboldt State University, I studied many population models and how these models have made an impact on our relationship with the environment. Being surrounded by nature really inspired me to take a closer look at the way humans influence other species and how the health of our environment depends on the choices we make today. I made it my goal to understand how current research in global climate change applies on a local scale and what issues, such as sea level rise, mean for the wildlife species that thrive in coastal habitats. In my research, I use many models and tools from different fields of research to assess how the Long-billed Curlew population may respond to habitat changes and provide suggestions for future development and research.
Learn more about my thesis in my Research and Models pages.
Learning
Using a breadth of resources and my unyielding curiosity, I finished my degree learning a great deal in my research that I never imagined I would know. I am always searching for a new challenge to use the knowledge I’ve gained and for a difficult, puzzling question to lead me to a new depth of understanding of what I know and what I wish to know.
Outcome:
A greater understanding and appreciation of birds and the environment.
Experience with GIS data and techniques.
Application of the SLAMM model to Humboldt Bay’s coastal habitats.
In-depth modeling development: design, coding, testing, analyzing, writing, and presenting.
Programs and Languages
NetLogo
SLAMM
GrassGIS
ArcGIS
R
MORPH
Latex
Applications
Complex Systems
Environmental Modeling
Conservation Management
Discovering Student Trends at HSU’s Learning Center
As a staff assistant for two summers, I collected and reported statistics to help identify trends in student success and the usage of HSU’s Learning Center services. I used Excel and pivot tables to manage the wealth of data that their system was collecting. It was a great opportunity and experience to work with the Learning Center director and staff to provide my insight to understand what the available data can tell us and how it can be used to answer complicated questions.
Outcome:
Math that solves real-world problems is empowering. Working with the director helped me understand how my work can influence the number of services and resources available to the student body. Providing these statistics and graphs illustrates just how important the Learning Center is to students at Humboldt State.
Teaching And Tutoring
You can never understand how difficult it is to be a teacher until you become one. Teaching today is an increasingly challenging task as newer technologies are pushed into the classroom and the state of teaching evolves with constantly changing generations of students. As a Teaching Associate at Humboldt State University, I learned a lot about the process of learning, in both my own and the students’ perspective. What seemed like simple mathematical ideas to me were completely different in the perspectives of many of my students. Understanding people and where they’re coming from is extremely important to communicating difficult ideas and creating relationships.
Outcome:
Teaching is a rich experience that offers many lessons about oneself and the diversity of human behavior and perspectives. To me, teaching isn’t about the scores and grades that the students get at the end of each semester, it’s about inspiring the process of learning and communicating the reasons why we aren’t here just to get degrees. Students and teachers are all here for the true purpose of education: to become smarter and more skilled contributors to society!