I'm a disease ecologist and evolutionary biologist by training, having completed my doctorate at Harvard University and a bit of a postdoctoral associateship at Duke University. As a disease ecologist, I'm specifically interested in understanding the interactions between parasites, hosts, and the enivronment; as an evolutionary biologist, I'm more broadly interested in understanding how interactions between organisms shape the general course of evolution. No organism evolves in a vacuum; indeed, it's often the discovery of the most unexpected and inexplicable interactions among organisms that furthers our understanding of evolution. But this isn't anything new; the father of modern evolutionary thinking himself even saw this an important point to make in his magnum opus:
"Many cases are on record showing how complex and unexpected are the checks and relations between organic beings, which have to struggle together…"
Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species
I’m also a data scientist, and I use various programming languages, databases, and statistical methods to discover, quantify, and describe the unexpected and unexplained in the natural world. My tool of choice among these approaches is R, and I've used it for upwards of 9 years for everything from basic statistics to multicore parallel simulations of disease outbreaks on social networks. I teach how to use R in traditional classroom settings, as well as through one-on-one peer mentoring and online learning platforms. I'm also a contributor to the R ecosystem through my development of packages, such as 'enss' for Effective Network Size Simulations.
In addition to my research, I'm also involved with various public science projects both on the web and in the real world, with the purpose of innovating upon the current academic model. Through evangelizing the benefits of outreach activities, academic collaboration, and research funding facilitation, I'm working to expand and enhance the broader impacts of science on society as a whole.
