I am a Museum research curator of ornithology. For much of my career I have been involved with avian ecology, radio telemetry, habitat use, and such. Mostly songbirds in NC but also one migratory species that we find in the non-breeding season in Nicaragua. I’ve stopped that work as of 2018 due to the political situation.

I am also a naturalist by “training”. I began watching birds at a very young age. Then joined a youth group for 11-14 year old nerdy kids at the Cincinnati Zoo, doing all sorts of nature and zoo-based learning. I went on to spend significant amounts of time with lepidoptera and fungi and nearly went to grad school for one of those (before falling back on birds).

I do a lot of public outreach as I work at the NC State Museum - where we have a huge outreach across the state. For the past 10+ years I have been mentoring about a dozen teens. They learn Museum and field research techniques.

I do a lot of gardening with native plants. I volunteer with our local Audubon chapter and we do a lot to promote native plants and gardening.

I am fairly fluent in Spanish and acoustic guitar.