In 2008 I graduated with my MS from Larry Smart’s Lab at SUNY-ESF.  Larry gives his students a personalized graduation gift, something that reflects the rapport he had with each student.  Mine included a hunter green sweatshirt, a hunter green picnic blanket, and a green water bottle because as he said, “she needs more green stuff.”  So yes, SUNY-ESF’s school colors are green and gold, but I’m pretty sure he had Michigan State University in mind with my hunter graduation gifts.  Larry went to MSU for his PhD, and I went to NC State for undergrad whose school colors are red and white.  During my 2nd year in his lab, NCSU and MSU played each other in the ACC-Big 10 Challenge and Larry and I bet on our respective teams, loser bakes the winner dessert in school spirit colors.  I made cupcakes with bright green frosting.  But apparently all that hunter apparel was just getting me ready for 2017…

I started a postdoctoral position in the Bradburd Lab at MSU.  I will work on spatial and temporal population genomics.  I’m really looking forward to learning new modeling skills.