I started my education at Andy's Orchids in Encinitas California where I learned how to grow and identify orchids. I spent a month at the Andean Orchid Research Center, at Ecuagenera, the year after I graduated from highschool where I learned how to illustrate orchids and co-authored three underscribed species of Porroglossum with Franco Pupulin and Gilberto Merino. Those experiences helped cement a foundation in orchid taxonomy and cultivation that was strengthened as an undergraduate at Cornell University. There I learned about botanical nomenclature under James Reveal, managing herbaria at the Liberty Hyde Bailey Hortorium Herbarium, systematic analyses with Kevin Nixon, and how to extract and sequence DNA with Jerrod Davis. At Cornell I met Andres Maduro and began working at Finca Dracula where I became familiar with the monkey orchids (Dracula: Pleurothallidinae) and decided to pursue research into their biology. I am currently a PhD student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the lab of Ken Cameron where I and collaborators are working on the phylogenetics of monkey orchids and the pollination biology of the Central American species. If you have any questions or just want to chat about orchids I'm happy to!