My Story
I grew up hunting in fishing in western Nebraska by Lake McConaughy and decided very early on that I wanted to become a fisheries biologist when I grew up. After high school I started working for the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission and Nebraska Invasive Species Program doing aquatic invasive species boat inspections. While getting my bachelors degree I worked for the Invasive Species Program and the Nebraska Cooperative Fisheries and Wildlife Research Unit doing public outreach on invasive species and looking at thousands of trail camera photos for hunters in SW Nebraska. After graduating I went to work for the NGPC fisheries and wildlife divisions sampling lakes and banding waterfowl. Currently I am back at UNL getting my masters in Natural Resource Sciences with a specialization in Applied Ecology under the direction of Jamilynn Poletto in the Fish Conservation, Behavior, and Physiology Laboratory. My project is looking at temperature tolerance of fathead minnows exposed to the herbicide atrazine.