Member since: January 01, 2014

I have been birding since high school thanks to some fantastic high school teachers who helped me get interested in natural history. Professors at the University of Michigan helped encourage my interest in birds. During college I cut my teeth as both a birder, lister, and avian researcher. I continued on to get a MS in Zoology at the University of Minnesota and spent lots of time there birding all over the state and region and then went on to Louisiana State University for a Ph.D. in Zoology. It was at LSU that I really expanded my field work internationally into both the neotropics and afrotropics. After grad school I moved to Illinois where I did a postdoc at the Illinois Natural History Survey and then the Field Museum where I worked for 8+ years. I am now the Curator of Ornithology at the Academy of Natural Sciences and am very excited to get to know all the great birding area in and around Philly!