I wasn't always a birder, although anyone who knows me might tell you otherwise. My interest in biology started when I was a kid. Between watching Wild Kingdom on Saturday afternoons and spending most of every day of school break camping, fishing, or roaming the woods, biology was a natural choice for me. It was no surprise to my parents when I informed them at the age of eight that I would be a wildlife biologist.
I received a double Bachelor of Science in marine biology and zoology from Humboldt State University in northern California under the direction of Dr. John Reiss. It was at Humboldt that I got hooked on birds and gained a love of marine estuaries and their terrifying complexity in nutrient dynamics. After a ten year hiatus, I went back to school and obtained a MS in Ecology at San Diego State University researching movement and diet dynamics of the Gull-billed Tern. I am now pursuing my doctorate at the University of Oklahoma focusing my research on life history, movement, and migration strategies of colonial, ground nesting waterbirds.
