I’m Clara! I’m a fourth-year PhD candidate in the Kern Ralph Co-Lab at the University of Oregon. I mostly code in Python and am raising a bearded dragon named Aeg. When I’m not on the computer, I enjoy making art, going to shows, and being outside.

Research

I’m primarily interested in studying geographic patterns of genetic variation, and I have a soft spot for infectious disease. I use simulation, statistics, and machine learning to make sense of the evolutionary forces that underlie real data. My current projects center around identifying geographic signatures of co-dispersal and selective sweeps in the Anopheles-Plasmodium system. More generally, I am interested using geographic and genetic data to better understand host-parasite dynamics.

Other stuff

I’ve been on the board of UO Women in Graduate Science for three years (and am currently President!). I love population genetics and it’s important to me to help make the field and science in general more inclusive and accessible.