What drew you to the research topic you explored in your submission?

I’ve always wanted to be a scientist. As a kid, that meant dreaming of becoming a paleontologist and studying dinosaurs. Over time, my interests shifted to everything from marine biology to pharmaceuticals. During my undergraduate degree at Drexel University, I was still searching for the kind of scientist I hoped to become.

At Drexel, students complete six-month co-op positions as part of their degree. My first was in a pharmaceutical-adjacent setting, and I quickly realized that path wasn’t for me. The following year, I applied for positions at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. Several collections were hiring, from herbarium to entomology, but paleontology initially caught my eye thinking I’d go back to what fascinated me as a kid. I didn’t end up getting the paleontology position, but I was offered one in the malacology department. Ironically, I remember grumbling about being “stuck with the snails.” It’s a bit of a cliché to say but those 6 months really did change the trajectory of my career. Working there I fell in love with mollusks and with natural history collections, in no small part due to the enthusiasm of the collection manager and curator there. I returned the following summer and soon after began my PhD at the University of Alabama, where I now study molluscan taxonomy and phylogenetics. Today, I hope to share the same excitement for this remarkably diverse, and often under appreciated, phylum that mentors like Gary Rosenberg and Paul Callomon shared with me.

How do you see your work contributing to public policy, citizen science, and/or science education more broadly?

My work focuses on the marine biodiversity of the waters surrounding Iceland in the North Atlantic. This is an oceanographically dynamic region where the warm Gulf Stream and the cold waters of the Nordic Seas mix creating large downwelling zone over the Greenland-Scotland Ridge. Due to the string influence of ocean currents mixing here, this region may be particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change. By documenting and describing species diversity, especially within understudied groups like Solenogastres, my research helps establish a critical baseline for biodiversity in the region. Without knowing what species are present today, it is impossible to accurately measure future change.

I am also passionate about science education and have founded a nonprofit called The Naturalist Project with the goal of helping people engage with the biodiversity of our planet. Our website provides free, accessible identification guides covering more than 550 species across the eastern United States and the Gulf of Mexico. By making these guides freely available, we aim to lower barriers to entry as traditional field guides can be expensive, bulky, and filled with specialized jargon that discourages beginners. In addition, our YouTube channel highlights the remarkable diversity of life on Earth, from species found in your backyard to extraordinary organisms from the deep-sea surrounding Antarctica. Through this work, I hope to foster curiosity, support citizen science participation, and strengthen public appreciation for biodiversity at both local and global scales.

What are your continuing research goals for the future (near or far)? What topics, areas, subjects are you interested in exploring?

I am excited to continue exploring the evolution of Solenogastres, particularly the diversification of their unique sclerite morphology and dietary specialization. Although solenogasters are often described as relatively uniform, they exhibit remarkable variation in the shape, arrangement, and composition of their calcareous sclerites. Understanding how these structures evolved, and how they relate to phylogeny, ecology, and function, is a major goal of my future research.

Solenogastres are carnivorous, with most species specializing on cnidarian prey such as corals, hydroids, and jellyfish. However, some lineages appear to have shifted to other prey types, including bivalves, polychaete worms, and even nemerteans. They have a wide variety of adaptations in their foregut anatomy including the radulae and complex foregut gland systems likely associated with these dietary specializations. I am particularly interested in investigating how these feeding adaptations evolved, whether dietary specialization has driven lineage diversification.

Is there anything else you want to share about you and/or your research?

It was a delightful surprise to have been nominated for this award, and I want to thank the American Malacological Bulletin for nominating me!