I am looking at the ecosystem and
environments of Central Pennsylvania
during the Ordovician time so about 
450 million years ago when Pennsylvania
was under water so I'm looking at all
the organisms that live there and how
they interacted. I now have three
localities from central Pennsylvania I'm
comparing to each other to see how
regional differences occurred and then
I'm also using a study done in the 70s
and I'll be comparing my research to
data collected then. So it's really fun
to see how research conducted 40 years
ago can still be relevant today. It's
really exciting to learn more about the
local stratigraphy. It's kind of an area
that's been overlooked in central
Pennsylvania but a lot of people around
here don't really know about the geology
of the area so I go to a couple outreach
opportunities every year and talk to
people about like what kind of fossils
they can find in the area. They're always
really excited to know that people from
Penn State are interested in the local
community too. The opportunities here at
Penn State are just incredible. I have
gotten funding from my research. I've
traveled to four conferences and Penn
State has helped with that. The
networking abilities that I've come in
contact with researchers from museums
and other colleges and they've been so
excited to help me just because I'm from
Penn State and they know what kind of
academics we have here.
