Amelia is a PhD candidate in the Animal Behavior Graduate Group at the University of California, Davis. She has forged numerous local and international collaborations to extend the reach of her research, which focuses on the effect of developmental experience on later responses to environmental change. She is currently working with a variety of species, including three-spined stickleback, Western mosquitofish and the intertidal snail Nucella lamelllosa, to address this question from different angles. Amelia is also dedicated to growing as a teacher and exploring creative means of scientific communication. She creates illustrated animal facts for the official blog of the Animal Behavior Graduate Group, The Ethogram, and is currently creating videos that will be featured on SciAll, a vlogging platform for scientists. She recently won the UC Davis Grad Slam competition at which she presented a three-minute talk about her research. 

Amelia is currently writing up her dissertation in preparation to begin her postdoc at the University of Glasgow. In her spare time, she likes hiking, cross-stitch, and playing with her dog, Darwin.

Of her ARCS award, Amelia says: “The ARCS Scholar Award has been crucial to my success as a graduate student. It provided me the flexibility to pivot my research plans when the pandemic prevented me from conducting my planned research. This allowed me to stay on track for graduation and was instrumental in why I was able to accept my dream postdoc. While I appreciate the financial support, it is the connections and conversations I have had with the ARCS community that really make the award unique. Talking about my research with the bright minds at ARCS events helped me to think about how I present it and ultimately shaped the presentation that I crafted for the UC Davis Grad Slam… Ultimately, the ARCS foundation is so powerful because it supports scientists who are then able to share their passion with the next generation of scientists, which I am incredibly grateful for.”