I’m a quantitative biologist studying how chemical diversity and time influence ecological interactions. As a PhD candidate in the Department of Entomology at Michigan State University, I deploy novel data tools to solve some our most fundamental questions about the natural world. Trained on mostly open-source coding materials, I am committed to making technical information more accessible to broad audiences.

Currently, I focus on three projects:

1. Curating and unlocking insights from a database of terpene diversity in plants
2. Modeling plant-herbivore temporal dynamics with empirical data
3. Integrating ecologists’ coding tools, communication, and education (see below)

Ecologists today know how to code. Traditionally in the ecological community, coding has been limited to sharing data with other ecologists. However, coding can accomplish so much more if ecologists employ this tool more broadly to other audiences. For that reason, I develop tools for field biologists to communicate their research with public audiences by leveraging the quantitative skills used for data analysis and publication.

These tools, called c4bi (Coding for broader impact), are created in collaboration with the Integrative Ecology Lab at Temple University. Our publication on the framework and programming workflow outlined in this project is in press at Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, and we are excited to share it with the ecological community and other scientists who code and work with many stakeholders.

Want to know more about what I’ve done in the past? Check out my CV!




google scholar github

Contact: turne400 (at) msu.edu