I am a curious person by nature. I have always asked “Why?” and fortunately I was lucky to have parents that encouraged my curiosity. However, I was not encouraged to pursue a scientific career by educators in primary and secondary education. I entered college thinking that I would be happy with a degree in environmental law, as that was close to my real interest in Biology. However, after Bio 101, that thought was gone forever. I switched to a BA in Botany and have never looked back.

My experience as a teenager is what led me to doing outreach work in public schools, and to inspire and work with young scientists. I feel that it is very important for the future of science to have a diverse group of people with diverse life experiences working in the field. My long term goal is an academic position in an institution that supports both teaching and research, as I enjoy both activities and find them to be synergistic.  I plan to continue my research in medical mycology and develop classes in my areas of expertise.

My dissertation work is focused on understanding the population genetics of a pathogen that is endemic to Southern Arizona, Coccidioides posadasii.  This fungal pathogen causes the disease coccidioidomycosis, more commonly known as Valley fever. In the United States, Valley fever is most common in California and Arizona.

The genus Coccidioides was recently divided into two putatively allopatric species using molecular markers: Coccidioides immitis, proposed to be restricted to California, and Coccidioides posadasii in the remainder of the fungus’s range: Arizona, Texas, Mexico, Central and South America (Fisher et al. 2002). Diagnosis of coccidioidomycosis does not require that clinicians know which species caused the disease, but questions remain regarding differences in disease severity and treatment.

In addition, the geographical separation is ambiguous, as some isolates obtained from patients in California were infected with C. posadasii and some patients from Texas, Arizona and Mexico were infected with C. immitis, the reverse of the usual observed pattern.  This effect is also observed at the population level, as both species are proposed to be divided into two populations: northern and southern California for C. immitis, and Arizona/Mexico and Texas/South America for C. posadasii. Again, patients may be infected with a strain of an unexpected origin. These atypical infections may be due to patients traveling to and being exposed in other regions than where they were diagnosed, or due to long distance wind dispersal of infective arthrospores that occur in soil.  Alternatively, the ranges of C. immitis and C. posadasii and their constituent populations may overlap, and zones of hybridization may exist.  My recent discovery of hybrids primarily within southern California C. immitis has provided support for this hypothesis.