I am a Professor in the Mathematics and Statistics Department at UAF with interests in phylogenetics, —and mathematical biology more generally—, algebraic methods, latent class models in statistics, and teaching. I earned my Ph.D. and M.S. in algebra at UCLA under the direction of Murray M. Schacher.

In 2013, I was elected a Fellow of the American Mathematical Society in its inaugural class.

Recent exciting activities include ICERM's fall 2024 semester program: Theory, Methods, and Applications of Quantitative Phylogenetics, and SLmath's 2025 summer school on sea ice and polar ecosystems modeling at UAF.