About me!Graduate School I am currently a PhD candidate in Dr. Brooke Flammang's lab at the New Jersey Institute of Technology studying shark functional morphology and swimming kinematics. My graduate research is funded by the Department of Defense Science, Mathematics, and Research for Transformation (SMART) Scholarship. I completed a Bachelors of Science in Marine Biology at Rutgers University in New Jersey in 2020. During my undergrad I did research on foraminifera whose calcium carbonate shells can tell us a lot about Earth's climate millions of years ago. I found my passion for research in Dr. Flammang's lab towards the end of undergrad where I created 3D models of remoras (sucker fish) to research how soft tissues influence their suctioning mechanism.
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Minorities in Shark Sciences I am also a co-founder and the Chief Financial Officer of Minorities in Shark Sciences, a 501(c)3 dedicated to fundraising for and creating a welcoming space for gender minorities of color in shark sciences. As a biracial woman, I spent a lot of time being one of only a few BIPOC people in my undergrad classes and am currently the only non-international BIPOC person in my graduate program. Choosing to enter a field where you stick out is a lonely path and MISS has allowed me to feel less lonely, and hopefully help others not experience what I did.To learn more about MISS please visit www.misselasmo.org.
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A student takes a small muscle samples from a blacknose shark during our free MISS workshops.
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Field School Outside of school I am a research assistant at Field School in Miami where I assist with teaching their Introduction to Shark Research Skills course. This includes teaching students how to do scientific workups on elasmobranch species such as drawing blood, taking morphological measurements and muscle samples, and inserting a tag to ID the shark in the future. I really enjoy teaching students new skills and especially introducing them to their first shark. The facial expressions students makes when they see or touch their first shark outside of an aquarium brings me immense joy. To learn more please visit www.getintothefield.com.
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Restraining a bonnethead shark while a Field School advanced student draws blood for stress physiology research.
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