I have always loved exploring the world, and was curious about the mechanics of organisms, their classification, and interactions in nature. However, I began college as an international relations and dance major, then switched to medicine before I realized that it was possible to have a career as a research scientist and be able to investigate my curiosities as a profession. But it is still hard for me to believe that I am a computational biologist. Computer scientists sat all day and never went outside. In graduate school I quickly discovered that I needed computational skills to address the questions that I was interested in, and that as with most stereotypes, the image I had of typical computer scientist was (mostly ;) ) false. Ultimately the power of the skills I was learning with programming and the flexibility of computational work have kept me hooked. I love that with computational biology I can work pretty much anywhere with electricity and an internet connection, and I can develop tools to address questions across many different organisms.

In no particular order:

• Curiosity
• Patience
• Creativity
• Organization
• Communication

Some really good courses in graduate school set the foundation for my quantitative skills. Then, searching for solutions to specific problems inspired me to learn more, and I asked for a lot of help and advice from other graduate students and advisors. Computer programming was mainly learned on my own, with the use of books, online resources, code shared with me by others, and copious amounts of frustration at times.

I am interested in comparing different ways to describe diversity within a community or ecosystem--through the phenotypic traits we observe, the evolutionary relationships viewed through a phylogenetic tree, and the complex transcribed genes of the organisms in the system. I use species invasions to understand dynamics in natural systems with these different measures of diversity, and work mainly at macro-ecological scales.

Computational biology has been a completely unpredictable adventure for me, which is my favorite thing about it. I am currently living in France collaborating with an ecology and evolutionary working group and studying communities of plants in Alpine ecosystems. I never thought that I would ever visit Europe, much less live here. The flexibility of the skills you learn as a computational biologist can open many interesting opportunities. Take advantage of them!