From rugged beginnings navigating the Midwestern soup my parents elected to raise me in (soup ingredients including: Michigan, Iowa, and Minnesota), to the rainy,

Patagonia-clad city of Seattle in which I now attend the University of Washington, one thing has remained unchanged- my love of finding dead things. I give credit mostly to the entertainment options, or lack there of, in Iowa. After all, scrutinizing my backyard for animal bones and turtle shells was more fun than trying to roll hay bails.

Once I started my undergraduate journey at UW, blindly sampling classes, I found myself in an Introduction to Archaeology class. This was the first time it dawned on me that my mildly creepy hobby could be a more than just a reason to keep my eyes glued to the ground on nature hikes. After this realization, I jetted off to Mallorca, Spain to participate in the Landscape, Encounters, and Identity Archaeology Project (LEIAP), which was equal parts excavation and survey. Upon my return to Seattle, I experienced archaeology withdrawals, so as any couple recovering from an untimely end would do, we got back together. I am now designing an exploratory research project involving macroscopic analysis of the handmade pottery sherds collected during survey.

When I’m not interrogating nature for dead things to admire, I enjoy equally wild activities like knitting, online shopping, and FaceTiming my pug, Franklin.