MEDS 2024
Pronouns: she/her
Bio
Hope is currently pursuing her Master of Environmental Data Science in the Bren School of Environmental Science and Management. She earned her Bachelor’s degree in Aquatic Biology from UC Santa Barbara in 2022, where she became passionate about research with environmental applications. She gained experience working on molecular scales while working with DNA in various disease ecology labs. The results of her laboratory procedures were used to gain a better understanding of patterns and ecological impacts of specific diseases in the environment. This highlighted the importance of understanding data, as laboratory results only have an impact when the data is analyzed properly. To expand her knowledge in data processing, she undertook a senior thesis project that aimed to use citizen science data to analyze patterns between anthropogenic stressors and coral-macroalgal phase shifts on coral reefs globally. As she pursues her Master’s degree and continues to work in the Briggs lab at UCSB, she hopes to continue to use her knowledge in data science and biology to improve the quality of ecological research by transforming data into results that will have real-world, environmental applications.