My initial interest in biology grew from simply wanting to get to know my friends. I was raised in a diverse community, where many of my friends’ families came from the Caribbean or Southeast Asia. When I visited their homes, I encountered foods, music, clothing, and stories that were different from my own. I often found myself comparing what I learned with the traditions of my parents’ homeland, Ethiopia.

Early on, my dad, a biologist at heart, taught me that cultural diversity is influenced by biodiversity because people build traditions around the plants, animals, and landscapes available to them. Although not the lesson he intended, those conversations, along with many personal and professional experiences in museums, began my journey toward wanting to understand and document biodiversity.

Today, my research examines why species are unevenly distributed across space and time. While global events, such as the end-Cretaceous mass extinction, have been studied extensively, regional ecological changes remain comparatively understudied, even though they likely played a major role in shaping modern patterns of biodiversity. I use the fossil record to investigate how regional changes, extinctions, and ecosystem shifts produced the distributions of species we see today.

Museums have strengthened this interest by allowing me to explore biodiversity across regions and deep time. As a result, both my research and public engagement center on museums, scientific collections, and tangible objects that help people connect with biodiversity.