Welcome to my website! I'm Katherine, an evolutionary biologist, biomechanist, and fish enthusiast. I study how the different ways that animals capture their prey can result in different evolutionary patterns over multi-million-year scales. I typically use the evolution of prey capture, often in reef fishes, as a study system.

I am a currently a postdoctoral researcher at Virginia Tech working with Josef Uyeda. I did my PhD at UC Davis with Peter Wainwright. My work integrates biomechanical principles, geometric morphometrics, and large kinematic and morphological datasets with phylogenetic comparative models of trait evolution on the macro-scale. My current research focuses on (1) leveraging the suction feeding performance landscape to understand diversification of feeding kinematics, and (2) exploring the exceptional diversity of fish body shapes.

In fall 2024, I will be joining the faculty at Washington State University in Pullman, WA, where I will be an Assistant Professor in the School of Biological Sciences and Director of the Conner Museum of Vertebrates!