Teaching
My experiences as an undergraduate at Washington and Lee University, a liberal arts college in Virginia, greatly influenced my growth as a scientist and educator. During a field course on biodiversity in the Ecuadorian Andes, I had a formative experience with nature that would inspire my future career path: our group of students was the first to observe the existence (and copulation!) of a pair of cloud forest pygmy owls in that region. Besides inspiring me to pursue graduate studies in tropical biology, my undergraduate experiences made me realize how little we know about biodiversity, how critical is the need to conserve ecological systems, and the effectiveness of active learning and inquiry. As an educator and mentor, I aim to impart to students the importance of all ecological systems and their immediate relevance to our well-being using evidence-based teaching practices.