.JPG)
I grew up in a small town in California called Saratoga, about an hour South of San Francisco. I basically grew up under a rock - nearly all the kids at my school had parents who immigrated to the United States to work in an Engineering or Computer Science related job. Nearly everyone was upper-middle class, since housing prices were ridiculously inflated due to the impressive rankings of the public schools in the area. Growing up, education was everything. There was no question about whether everybody would go to college or not. It was just assumed. Wanting to grow up and do something other than become a doctor, lawyer, engineer, or business (wo)man was very unusual.
Ever since I can remember, I wanted to be a doctor. I think this had sometime to do with having a fantastic pediatrician who I looked up to very much. Around 4th or 5th grade, I decided that I would rather be an animal doctor than a human doctor, since I preferred animals to people. This dream of becoming a veterinarian stuck with me all the way up through the beginning of college. When it was time to apply to college, I only had one school in mind. I knew I wanted to go into the animal field, and UC Davis was one of the best schools in the nation for that. However, even within the University of California system, other schools were more prestigious. I was told "just apply to all of them to see if you'll get in." So I did. And when I got into all of the schools I applied to, my mind didn't change. I wanted to go to UC Davis. My parents got a lot of flak for letting me make my own choices. They were told they had failed me as parents, that I would hate them for letting me make decisions I would regret. It hurts a little to know that my parents had to put up with these criticisms, but I'm so appreciative that they've let me find my own path and make my own choices.
Shortly after starting college (actually about 3 weeks!), I attended a free workshop on campus titled "How Fido Learns". It turned out to be run by Dr. Sophia Yin. Having a fearful and aggressive dog, I was initially drawn to Dr. Yin's teachings as a means for training my own dog, but I quickly found myself eating up the material and thirsting for more. I volunteered my time helping around in the office, but found myself putting in well over the required 10 hours just because I loved being in Dr. Yin's presence and learning as much as I could from her. The summer after Freshman year, I arranged to do a full-time summer internship with Dr. Yin, and was offered a part-time paid position when the internship ended and the school year started up again. From then until I graduated, I easily spent more hours in the office each week than I did on campus. Dr. Yin and I became very close - she always introduced me as "the super-student who doesn't need to study" and pushed me to accomplish things well outside of my comfort zone. Even though I'm sure Dr. Yin wanted me around the office forever, she was always looking out for opportunities for my career development. We talked about how I would finish my PhD and come back and she would have earned enough money so I could run a doggie daycare and she would hire me to use the dogs and the space to run various behavioral experiments together. When I came across the notice for the PhD program in Australia, she said "I am going to write you the best recommendation letter ever!"
We tragically lost Dr. Yin in September 2014, about two months before I found out that I had been accepted into the PhD program in Australia.
From 2015-2018, I was a postgraduate student at La Trobe University's Bendigo regional campus. My PhD thesis was titled "Questioning the clicker: Investigating perceived and actual benefits of clicker training companion dogs". Along the way I also trained dogs for forced-choice discrimination tasks required to study canine visual perception.
As my PhD was coming to a close, I went searching for an "industry" job. The thought of being a research academic, living grant to grant with no job security and grants dictating avenues of research, just didn't seem particularly appealing. In May 2015, I was hired as a Canine Welfare Training Technician at Guide Dogs for the Blind, and moved five months later into a role in the Puppy Raising and Breeding departments as a Canine Resources Manager. In my current job, I help oversee the Puppy Raising field staff, develop and teach new training techniques, and produce resources to train our community of 2000+ puppy raising volunteers. Some days I wake up and wonder if this is real life; I am 110% living the dream!
