Gracie is an undergraduate student in the Honors College at the University of Oklahoma earning her dual B.S./B.A. degree in biology and criminology. She joined the Siler Lab in Spring 2021 as an undergraduate field assistant and volunteer.

Gracie attended her freshman year at The University of Texas at Austin where she worked in an urban ecosystems research lab. When she transferred to OU, Gracie’s love for research flourished. Here, she began working under Dr. Heather Ketchum in a forensic/medical entomology lab. Gracie continued to develop her research expertise and knowledge in the field of biology by becoming an Infectious Disease Field Assistant under the Siler Lab. As a field assistant, her love for herpetology, fieldwork, and camping expanded.

Alongside her work in biology, Gracie has a passion for criminology. She co-developed and independently led a new undergraduate tutoring program for social science statistics courses with Dr. John Leverso. Gracie later joined Dr. Leverso’s research efforts and assisted in the analysis and coding of online, social media interactions of contemporary Chicago street gangs.

Gracie is currently working under the Provost’s Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity (UReCA) Fellowship, tracking the presence and emergence of amphibian infectious diseases in eastern Oklahoma. As a fellow, Gracie has been working in the Siler lab and collaborating with the lab of Dr. Daniel Becker, developing skills in pathogen screening and hematological microscopy.

Gracie plans to further her education by getting a graduate degree and hopes to ultimately pursue a career in academia and research.