I first became interested in birds at my best friend's turkey farm when I was a child. During my college years at Penn State, I enrolled in an ornithology class and spent my summers watching wild birds at a summer camp while working as a counselor. After graduation, I realized I wanted to pursue a career in avian biology, so I accepted an aviculture internship at the Tracy Aviary shortly after my undergraduate degree was finished. After working for several months at the San Antonio Zoo as a bird keeper, I moved back to Pennsylvania in 2002 for my current job as a bird keeper at the Philadelphia Zoo. I am also working part-time on my Master's thesis at Villanova University. My focus is on Carolina chickadee song repertoire and context at a site in Chester County, Pennsylvania. I'm an amateur birder right now, but I'm learning!