I first dreamed of scientific glory at the age of four, when I discovered a perfect oval rock that I convinced myself was a dormant dinosaur egg. I nestled the “egg” under a bonsai tree in my parent’s front yard and routinely inspected it for new fractures or any indication that a dinosaur would soon emerge. I, of course, never became the first person to hatch a prehistoric animal, but the rock still sits in my parents’ yard as a reminder of my early curiosities about the world around me.
My path to science was traditional. Girl goes to college. Then, girl samples her way through majors before landing on one — environmental science in my case. The newness of the discipline at the time intrigued me, and its mission-driven ethos aligned with my long-standing passion for social justice. I became invested in learning about species decline and how to reverse it, especially in the most underserved, yet biodiverse places in the world. It was also through my coursework that I began to code and conduct research. Coding felt like a game between the computer and me – I’d earn points with each error resolved, second saved, and successful execution. And when I finally cracked a troublesome code and saw the glorious “DONE” print statement, I felt immense satisfaction like I just beat a BIG BOSS. Given my skillset and interests, conservation research was an intuitive career choice. I proceeded to gain experience as a junior data scientist at UCLA and a field research technician in Madagascar. From scrambling rocks in the Mojave Desert sampling lizard genetics to trekking emerald green rainforests documenting lemur behavior, I became intimately familiar with the meticulousness of data collection and messiness of data cleaning. These roles also grew my appetite for harnessing advanced analytical techniques to foster a more sustainable and equitable future. Hence, I embarked on a PhD to become a conservation scientist. Through my PhD, I not only strengthened may foundations in experimentation and statistics, but also grew an aptitude for managing projects and communicating my findings to audiences with diverse backgrounds. While I found the open-endedness of generating knowledge to be creatively freeing and mentally stimulating, I came to realize that the biodiversity crisis was not due to a lack of ecological knowledge, but a lack of human will to change our resource consumption practices. Afterall, the main driver of the biodiversity crisis is habitat loss linked to natural resource extraction, and secondarily climate change. Conservation science is vital for triaging a sick ecosystem, as a doctor triages a sick patient, but it does not prevent the ecosystem from becoming sick in the first place. Therefore, I became more interested in understanding the human dimensions of resource use (e.g., consumer behavior, supply chains, emissions, waste streams) and business strategies that can be implemented to proactively maintain the health of the people, the planet and profits. As a Doctor of Philosophy in the field of Ecology and Evolution, I have an enthusiasm for tackling challenging problems that directly improve business efficiencies, advance disruptive technologies and drive behavioral change in support of the triple bottom line. I also have an evolutionary framework for investigating human behavior and AI development, as well as a diverse statistical toolkit for supporting decision-making through causal inference and predictive modeling. Although satisfying my curiosities looks a bit different from my younger days monitoring a dormant “dinosaur egg” in my parents’ yard, I still get the same thrill when diving into vast amounts of data to unearth the latest secrets about the world around me. |