I got my B.S. in Chemistry from the University of California Santa Cruz in 2000 and completed my undergraduate research thesis with Dr. Lincoln Taiz on the role of flavonoids in Arabidopsis development. Before going to grad school, I took a four year gap. During this time I taught art to kids and then worked as a lab manager for Dr. Shelia McCormick at the Plant Gene Expression Center. I did my Ph.D. in Plant Biology at UC Davis (2004-2009) with Dr. Charles Gasser studying patterning and polarity during ovule development. I was an NIH postdoctoral fellow at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies from 2009-2011 and an HHMI postdoctoral scholar at UC San Diego with Dr. Mark Estelle from 2011-2014. I joined the Department of Genetics, Development, and Cell Biology in as an Adjunct Assistant Professor in 2015 and an Assistant Professor in 2019. My team studies auxin dependent morphogenesis in maize and Arabidopsis using interdisciplinary approaches.