About

My full CV is available here.

Background

I received my PhD in History and Philosophy of Science in 2017 from Arizona State University, in which I investigated the history of the intersection of development and evolution within research on mammalian teeth. I spent a Fulbright year with the evolutionary phenomics laboratory of Jukka Jernvall at the University of Helsinki. During my PhD studies, I managed the MBL History Project, wrote and edited for the Embryo Project Encyclopedia, worked as a Project Coordinator for the Center for Biology and Society at ASU for four years, and was the developing editor for Harvard University Press for Lucie Laplane’s book, Cancer Stem Cells: Philosophy and Therapies. Prior to pursuing my doctorate, I earned an MPhil in Human Evolutionary Studies from the University of Cambridge in 2010, where I attended as a Gates Scholar, and a BPhil in Anthropology from the University of Pittsburgh in 2009, where I also earned a minor in German Studies and a certificate in the Conceptual Foundations of Medicine (HPS).

My Research

The driving theme of my research in the history and philosophy of science is excavating the assumptions ingrained within scientific practice and explanations, and turning them into a tool to transform and accelerate scientific research.

My research spans a variety of questions and areas within biology, history, and philosophy:

Germline: How has germline been conceived and investigated? How has our perception of germline influenced discussions about and policies for human genome editing?

Regeneration: How have scientists defined and approached the study of regeneration–a phenomenon that can be found playing out throughout the entire span of complex living systems, from microbial communities, to organisms, to ecosystems?

Cell Lineages: How have scientific conceptions of cell lineages changed over time? What does it mean to call germline a cell lineage?