Travel
Amidst the chaos of research, life and everything in between, I try to travel to new places as often as I can to explore and take time for myself. Below are some photos documenting those travels!
2025
A year of wrapping up my PhD! Visited Glacier National Park, hosted a workshop at BML focused on “urchins in science and art”, walked in an eco-art fashion show by ngirlscollective (@ngirlscollective on Instagram, another Bilinski fellowship project), presented at Evolution in Athens, GA and traveled to Moab, UT for my sister’s wedding.
urchin-spine dye bath with a wool hat inside!
Group Photo at the Urchins in Science and Art Workshop!
Glacier National Park
blue skies in Moab, UT
Walking in the exaptive potential fashion show at Bodega Marine Lab
2024
A large portion of 2024 was spent at the Bodega Marine Lab running intense larval experiments and supporting undergraduate mentee research, but I still found some time to enjoy my 4th/5th year of my PhD! I visited my sister in Denver, learned gyotaku fish printing techniques, traveled to Boise, ID and went to Montreal for the International Evolution Conference! This summer I also wrapped up the RNA extractions for my dissertation and built a collaboration with a local natural dye artist, Margaret Seelie of Seelie Studio, who uses urchin spines to dye fabric. I was awarded a Bilinski Fellowship to run a workshop in 2025 at BML connecting science, art and sea urchins. I also learned I am a beach biologist and should maybe never step foot on a boat again until they create maximum strength motion-sickness medication.
Pushing beakers around Bodega Marine Lab!
Yay experiment time!
Biking around Montreal!
Gumboot Chiton spotting in Half Moon Bay!
2023
I spent the winter field season at the Bodega Marine Lab, developing experimental protocols and enjoying living by the coast. I had a very busy summer this year too: I went to Albuquerque, New Mexico to share my dissertation work at the National Evolution Conference and caught up with people I met at the two small conferences in 2022. I also spent the summer at the Bodega Marine Lab TAing the summer ecotoxicology course and running my own urchin larval experiments with an undergraduate mentee. I continued my travels in the PNW helping a friend with her own beetle fieldwork and saw the western-most point of the US and a salmon run for the first time.
tiny urchins in Bodega Bay Harbor!
Hardworking undergraduate mentee Sindhu at the microscope
The westernmost point of the US, Cape Flattery, with views of Tatoosh Island
Biking in Victoria, B.C.
2022
This year I finished up my urchin spine collections for my third chapter in beautiful Victoria, B.C.! I had never been to Canada before and I really enjoyed the area. I also traveled for several workshops/ conferences this year, including the RCN Integration and Training Workshop at Shoal’s Marine Lab in July and the Urban Evolutionary and Ecological ‘Omics SMBE Workshop in D.C. in November.
2021
Continued my fieldwork, went on some local hikes and even got some urchins in the lab while keeping myself and community safe during Covid. Also assisted in some seagrass experiment breakdown out at the Bodega Marine Lab.
2020
Amidst a global pandemic I found myself mostly at my home office throughout the second year of my PhD, however I feel lucky that I was able to access my field sites in the Southern California Bight area.
2019
Graduated from WSU, attended Evolution 2019, worked as a field assistant and molecular biologist in Dr. Crowder’s lab all summer and moved to California to begin my PhD in Population Biology at UC Davis.
2018
In May, my younger sister and I headed to Paris to explore museums and then flew off to Manchester and London to visit a friend of mine. After those two weeks, she left for home and I attended a week-long Bioinformatics workshop hosted by Physalia in Berlin. I got back to the US on June 2nd and then headed to Peru on June 8th. In Peru, I was an assistant teacher with my previous AP Biology teacher, Jason Anderson, and was able to work with Operation Wallacea again. We lived on a boat for two weeks where I mentored a group of six high schoolers and assisted scientists with data collection. Afterwards, we did a quick detour to hike Machu Picchu before returning home.
2016-2017
Visited my best friend’s family in Germany for New Years, where we were able to witness true “bottle rockets”, see the black forest and explore around Luxembourg City.
2016
Adventured to Scandinavia on a Faculty-led trip where I was able to attend Oslo Pride in Norway, write a paper on counter-cultures in society based around Christiania in Copenhagen, Denmark and watch boat races in Stockholm, Sweden.
2015
Began my Undergraduate Career at Washington State University with a B.S. in Biology with specialization in Evolutionary Biology and Ecology.
2014
Traveled to Ecuador with a conservation company based out of the UK (Operation Wallacea) where I was able to work with scientists from around the world. This trip with my AP Biology Teacher, Jason Anderson, inspired my scientific career as a whole.
