"I began my undergraduate degree at UNCW in Fall 2021. I came into the school with an associates degree that I earned during my time in high school due to my enrollment in an early college high school program. I completed high schooling with a 4.0 GPA and earned a score of 34 on my ACT test. During my time in undergrad, I also conducted my own research as part of the Honors program. This involved leading a research project in environmental communications, writing a thesis paper, and defending this to a committee. My project specifically looked at the effects of writing styles on undergraduate students' abilities to read scientific literature. I graduated in Spring 2024 as magna cum laude with a B.S. in Marine Biology and a minor in pre-law.

Following graduation, I began working on a PhD at UNCW. The focus of my PhD research is the long-finned pilot whale species, specifically looking at aspects of this species' range and ecology in the North Atlantic ocean. During my time as a graduate student, I have had the opportunity to give several presentations and lectures on my research and on topics in biology and ecology. These opportunities involved presentation creation and content development, giving the presentation to undergraduate student classes, and answering the questions that these students may have.

I have also been a Teaching Assistant at the university for the last year and a half. In this position, I teach two sections of a lab course each week. I am responsible for creating lecture slides, giving these lectures, and ensuring that students understand the content during lab activities. I also provide grades and feedback to students during the semester and work with any that require additional explanations of content." less...