Research Interests

My research interests lie in understanding the influences of developmental stressors on behaviour, cognition, neural development, and the formation of different stress-coping styles. I am also interested in how stress experience affects and interacts with lateralization in structure and function of the cerebral hemispheres and how this lateralized functioning may relate to cognitive biases and stress innoculation.

My primary study species to address these questions is the convict cichlid (Amatitlania nigrofasciata), a Central American fish. I am interested in laboratory-based as well as field-based research.

In addition, my experience teaching undergraduate students has led to an interest in pedagogical research related to student motivation, learning strategies, skills-based outcomes, and effective teaching techniques used to increase these measures.

FIELD EXPERIENCE

Lake Xiloa, Nicaragua, 2013

Behavioural Data Collection, Drs. Ryan Earley and Ethan Clotfelter

Worked in collaboration with researchers from the University of Alabama and Amherst College collecting behavioural data on convict cichlid fish in the wild.

• Proficient at videotaping behavioural trials underwater using SCUBA to a depth of 50ft, collecting observational behavioural data underwater, underwater nighttime collection of live specimens, and dissecting, removing, and preserving tissue samples from specimens in a make-shift field laboratory setting.