In addition to exhibitions, I value in-person engagement with museum visitors. The Science Hub is aimed at in-person engagement with collections—over the course of a week in July 2025, I spoke to 2,000 Field Museum visitors about kingfisher evolution as a visiting scientist in the Hub. At the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, I have spoken to hundreds of K–12 students for ‘Collections Revealed’ events, discussing how birds produce their feather colors. Other outreach examples at NHMLAC include demonstrating the preparation of bird specimens for ‘Haunted Museum’, a member’s only night event, or speaking to some of the 6,000 visitors who attended the ‘Dino Fest’ event on Archaeopteryx and the evolution of birds.

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During my PhD, I participated in semi-annual open house events because the MSB lacks public-facing exhibits. For example, at the “Evolution Revealed: Specimens Behind the Species” event in 2023 I demonstrated how scientists use UV- spectrophotometry to measure and analyze feather colors to understand their evolution. While large annual events provide excellent opportunities for public engagement, I also prioritize smaller, more consistent outreach programming. I regularly speak to local elementary and high school classes about biodiversity science and how students can become involved in research. This outreach directly led to me mentoring a local student in Albuquerque on her senior capstone project on skeletal specimen preparation.

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My research has also been the subject of media attention, during which I was able to communicate the value of natural history collections to the general public. In 2020, I wrote a popular science article for the American Birding Association, titled “The data behind mysterious bird deaths in New Mexico,” and discussed explanations for a large avian mortality event in Colorado and New Mexico. By comparing museum records and recent mortalities, I was able to quickly demonstrate that starvation, not wildfire smoke in California, contributed to the mass mortality event. As a result of this work, I was interviewed by 15 outlets, including the Albuquerque Journal, Denver Post, New York Times, NPR, and CBS Saturday Morning. When I published evidence that supported the erection of a new avian family, Eurocephalidae, I used study skins to highlight convergent evolution during my interview with the local news station in Albuquerque.

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I also value teaching outreach and scientific communication skills to the next generation of scientists. For six years, I served as an instructor-of-record for a scientifc communication course, the University of New Mexico BioBlog, which was geared at teaching undergraduate and graduate students how to break down complex scientific topics for a general audience. During my time as BioBlog instructor, we received >100K page views. One of my favorite stories about this course is that one of my articles, 'Predatory Songbirds: the case of the murderous tits" was tweeted by Richard Dawkins in 2020.