About me

• Ecologist and snail biologist.

• Artist with experience in digital illustration, drawing, watercolor, and diverse other media. Aspiring children’s book author/illustrator who is actively building a portfolio.

• Seeking literary agent. Interested in working as an author/illustrator or separately as an illustrator or writer. Open to work-for-hire.

In second grade, a friend asked me what I wanted to be when I was an adult. Without any need to think it over, I said “biologist or artist.” That dichotomy has been remarkably consistent over the years – I was often taking classes and dabbling in one or the other. But artists are starving (so we hear), I wanted to have reasonably reliable employment prospects, and there is undeniable virtue in Saving the World through wildlife conservation, so I choose the biology route for college.

I earned a biology degree at Bryn Mawr College and a PhD in ecology at the University of Maryland. Against professional recommendations, I fell in love with my study subject (molluscs) and picked up temporary jobs curating collections of molluscs and doing research at the National Museum of Natural History and the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. Then, as often happens with female spouses, I reconvened with my husband in the DC area, had two children, and became a full-time parent with only the occasional small job in the sciences. The great disruption of COVID kept us even more confined to a narrow existence at home.

A lightbulb moment, two years ago:

On walks in the woods with my younger son, we both had fun poking under fallen logs, inspecting leaves and tree trunks at eye-level, and examining tiny animals doing tiny animal things. I wanted to own a book that could show him, without our disrupting these invertebrates, how they live: burrowing in cavities in the dirt, feeding in between leaves, cuddling up inside galls. It occurred to me that I’d have to make that book myself, since gall wasps and other less flashy insects aren’t popular kids’ book subjects, and I happen to have the biology and art background to do it right. I have since become very interested in using the medium of children’s picture books to reach young kids and their parents: to show them how diverse life is, even around their own neighborhoods; to introduce important topics in conservation; and to show them how to appreciate, respect, and preserve nature close to home.