Assistant professor
University of Florida
I am an Assistant Professor in the Dept. of Entomology & Nematology at the University of Florida. My research is at the interface of population, community, and evolutionary ecology focusing on plant-herbivore interactions. Current research themes in the lab include the evolution of plant defense against insects, spatial variation in plant-herbivore interactions, and insect community ecology. I am primarily interested in fundamental questions in ecology using herbaceous plants and insect herbivores in grasslands, although we are also interested in applied questions related to ecosystem management, such as understanding invasion dynamics and how herbivores influence ecological restoration. To address these questions, we combine observational and experimental approaches in the lab, greenhouse, and field at scales from local patches to populations and communities distributed across bioclimatic gradients.