I received my B.S. from Ohio University in 2000 with a major in Wildlife Biology and a minor in Environmental Studies. I then went on to complete my M.S. in the Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Aquaculture at Mississippi State University in 2004 studying genetic interrelationships of northern bobwhite. I returned to MSU in 2007 as a Research Associate coordinating both spatial and data management and analysis components of the National CP33 Monitoring Program and the Northern Bobwhite Restoration Projects (spanning more than 14 states and 10 physiographic regions). While at MSU I worked toward and completed a Ph.D. in the Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Aquaculture in 2012. I also transitioned in 2012 to a position as Assistant Regional Data Manager with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, National Wildlife Refuge System, Southeast Region Inventory and Monitoring Network. I worked to coordinate and integrate spatial and relationally-structured non-spatial data on several regional, multi-regional, and national FWS and LCC partnership projects, including the Mobile Acoustical Bat Monitoring project that spans 11 states and 5 physiographic regions. In April 2014 I transitioned back to Mississippi State University to take over the Geomatics Coordinator of the Gulf Coastal Plains and Ozarks Landscape Conservation Cooperative, housed in the Geosystems Research Institute on MSU's campus. From there I returned to the Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Aquaculture at Mississippi State as an Assistant, then Associate Professor of Conservation Biology. I also co-direct the MSU Quantitative Ecology and Spatial Technologies Lab. In 2022, I accepted an appointment as Associate Director of the Geosystems Research Institute at Mississippi State with emphasis on Agriculture and Natural Resources.