Growing up on an island in a lake in remote, northern Canada, I developed a deep appreciation for the wilderness and for the unique challenges that each new season would bring. These experiences instilled a lifelong interest in the kinds of biological and cultural mechanisms that enabled ancient humans to explore and adapt to new environments, worldwide.

My research focuses, broadly, on relationships between humans and their environments. Areas of interest include questions of diet and health; cultural and biological adaptations; medical and evolutionary perspectives on genetic disorders such as Neurofibromatosis Type 1 (NF1); effects of environmental factors (e.g., climate, burial deposit chemistry, vegetative cover, animal and insect activity, etc.) on the preservation of bones, plant remains, and the molecules within them; and the comparative utility of various field and laboratory techniques to produce informative archaeological, nutritional, and forensic data.