Other Things To Know About Me

I am/was a member of various other organizations. In high school, I joined the Entomological Society of America, where I present regularly. I am also an Eagle Scout and love being outdoors, which is one of the necessities for studying ants. In the summer of 2022, I worked with Discover Life in America as a Biology intern and Updated the taxonomy of the ant collection there. In addition, I have done some identification work for Colorado State University and created a piece of literature that is (hopefully) being used to assist in identifying Colorado Stinging Ants. I also recently had the privilege of attending the California Academy of Sciences’ Ant Course, hosted by the Binatang Research Center in Papua New Guinea. My favorite taxonomic group to work with (currently) is Solenopsis ‘thief ants’, it is uncertain whether or not these are monophyletic I believe.

In terms of photography, I have done lots of research on different macro photographers and have tried my hands on various photography techniques. In high school, I was a photography student, and I won various awards during that time, including the same departmental award twice (which had apparently not happened before). I continued with photography throughout the following summer during my internship with Discover Life In America, and that summer I also attended Bugshot on a student scholarship. The following academic year I was significantly less active but still won an award in Morehead State’s Inscape journal, where 2 of my images were published. I enjoy photography, and one day hope to travel around the world documenting ants and the regions in which they are found. Read more about my photographic encounters with ants on my blog. 

I personally believe that every person should take at least a little time to learn something about insects and I advocate for people who are passionate about them to go and teach others about insects. I love brainstorming and coming up with new ideas, and I particularly love using Google Sheets for some reason.