Welcome!

Thank you for visiting my website. I am an ecologist interested in understanding the consequences of anthropogenic disturbances in ecosystems and assessing the effectiveness of conservation and management strategies.

I currently focus on preventing and managing plant invasions as the UF/IFAS Assessment Coordinator at the University of Florida, using science-based risk assessment tools to evaluate non-native plants, proposed introductions, and new agricultural or horticultural varieties in Florida.

My research also examines how invasive plants, drought, and fire interact to shape native plant communities. Through a long-term field experiment, my work has provided the first experimental evidence of the fire-invasion cycle, showing how repeated fire can promote invasive, fire-adapted species like cogongrass while degrading native ecosystems.