Graduate Students

Here at EWU, I am examining the bone morphology, muscle attachment points, and biomechanics of Antarcticavis capelambensis to figure out what lifestyle it would have lived. Was it a foot-propelled diver? Was it flying? Was it mostly on the ground? I will be comparing this bird to both other fossil birds and extant relatives to help figure this out. My past research includes examining a grebe-like tarsometatarsus from the late Cretaceous, examining a juvenile Bottosaurus harlani left dentary from the late Cretaceous, describing an ankylosaur tail club from Montana, and finding the pathology that affected a sea turtle from the late Cretaceous. I have also done field work in Wyoming as an intern for the Wyoming Dinosaur Center, where I was working in the Morrison Formation. I did field work in Montana where I was working in the Hell Creek Formation. Also, I have done extensive field work in New Jersey where I worked in the Hornerstown Formation.

My research project brings together native plant restoration and regenerative agriculture techniques on the Inland Pacific Northwest Prairie Restoration Project on the EWU campus. Plant communities on prairie restoration sites are typically less diverse than those of prairie remnants, in part because of difficulty establishing forbs (non-grass herbaceous plant species). My research focuses on whether restoring the soil microbial community improves the diversity of forbs that establish. I’ve seeded test plots on the EWU restoration site with a seed mixture composed of 16 native forbs and 3 native grasses. To influence soil community composition, I’m using compost tea: liquid compost extract amended with a microbe food source such as molasses and aerated to multiply the microorganisms from the source compost. I will document not only native plant abundance and biomass after compost tea treatment, but also soil bacteria, fungus, and nematode community composition before and after compost tea application. The results of my study will show the extent to which compost tea changes the soil and plant communities on the restoration site. If this approach successfully increases forb diversity, it may be an inexpensive and scalable option for an integrated community ecology approach to plant community restoration.

I am a multifaceted researcher, educator, and science illustrator communicating the relationship humans have with the environment to the public. My unique experience curating avenues of open science in freshwater, marine, and tropical ecology in the Western United States and Costa Rica, has taught me valuable leadership skills I continue to utilize in my higher education and career at Eastern. My thesis will be investigating host-pathogen-microbiome dynamics in tropical lowlands anuran populations. Lethal panzootic pathogens (e.g. Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd) and ranavirus) and bacterial skin microbes have a bidirectional relationship to their richness and diversity. Understanding the implications of co-infection in the tropics will provide insight to disease and microbial ecology to preserve this valuable taxon. When I am not in the lab or field, I am illustrating as HEKpaintings, a small business dedicated to conservation and environmental education.

Multiple myeloma is a blood cancer of terminally differentiated B lymphocytes, also known as plasma cells. Multiple myeloma plasma cells aggregate in the bone marrow where they overstimulate the activity of osteoclasts which are cells responsible for the degradation of mineralized bone. For individuals with multiple myeloma, heightened activity of osteoclasts leads to the increased prevalence of bone pain, fragility fractures and renal dysfunction. Using molecular techniques such as RT-PCR, fluorescent microscopy, and viral modulation of gene expression, my research focuses on the cell signaling pathways that drive bone pathology in the multiple myeloma disease process. Most notably, I have been investigating the role of the Notch signaling pathway.