For as long as I can remember I have been fascinated by birds and nature in general. As a keen birder, I have been fortunate to explore much of my home country of South Africa while looking for birds. The questions raised by experiences in the field and my love for evolutionary biology pushed me to study ornithology. I am particularly interested in the origins of phenotypic plasticity, and the role that plasticity can play in adaptive capacity in the face of climate change.

I completed BSc in Biology and Applied Statistics at the University of Cape Town in 2022. I joined the African Cuckoos team at the University of Cape Town in 2023 to do my BSc Honours research project, investigating the relationships between temperature, egg phenotypes and parental behaviour in ground-nesting birds in Zambia (supervised by Prof. Claire Spottiswoode, Dr Nicholas Horrocks and Dr Shannon Conradie). This work led me to be interested in the thermal limits of ground-nesting birds and their eggs, and how they will be impacted by increasing temperatures.

I am currently doing my MSc at the University of Cape Town. My research focuses on the evolution of fire-dependent life histories in birds, specifically looking at the ecology of Bronze-winged Coursers and their movements in relation to the burnt areas in which they breed (supervised by Prof. Claire Spottiswoode, Dr. Eunbi Kwon and Prof. Sally Archibald).