About
"Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts."
-Rachel Carson
My study of marine ecosystems has taken me on quite the journey! What started as a love of marine invertebrates became a fascination with the contaminants that change their environment. From there, my research sparked a passion for environmental justice and protecting marginalized communities from contaminant exposure, and my goal is to continue in that direction as I move through my career. I am also very passionate and quite vocal about disability inclusivity in the sciences.
In 2025 I graduated with a PhD in Ecotoxicology! My dissertation was titled "Pesticides as multiple stressors to bivalves and echinoderms," and focused on the effects and occurrences of pesticides with other contaminants, primarily microplastics and pharmaceuticals. My focus was on atrazine, bifenthrin, diuron, imidacloprid, and indaziflam, including a review of all five pesticides! However, my interest in contaminants is very broad, head on over to my research page to see more!
Before beginning my PhD, I worked for three years in Chile as a laboratory and field technician. The primary research focus in that laboratory was larval connectivity among marine protected areas and my role was to install and collect intertidal larval collectors and analyze them under the microscope.
I currently work at the Oregon Department of Agriculture as a Pesticides Registration Specialist. This job has been a big change for me, and I appreciate the opportunity to learn more about the regulatory process and see varying points of view surrounding the use of pesticides.
Outside of my career, I enjoy photography, gardening, watching movies, and reading. I'm a cat parent and I'm learning to draw! I try to live a sustainable life as much as I am able and am passionate about teaching others how to do the same. I love language; while living in Chile I became fluent in Spanish and have been (slowly) learning Brazilian Portuguese.
 Filtering water samples for wastewater microplastics at Cannon Beach. |  Allie heading to help open up a sewage drain for wastewater sample collection. |  Allie presenting her sea star research at the Western Society of Naturalists meeting. |
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 Allie's first day of work as a sustainability intern at LAIKA Studios. |  Allie and Carla holding the paper coffee cups collected during a waste audit. |  Allie posing with her LAIKA bosses/mentors. |
 The Granek Lab attendees at PNW SETAC in 2024. |  Allie presenting her eelgrass monitoring research at PNW SETAC 2024. |  Speakers for the inclusivity panel formed by Allie at PNW SETAC 2024. |
 Wrapping up the eelgrass monitoring research with the CTCLUSI. |  CTCLUSI eelgrass fieldwork team, day 1! |  Allie found a critter! |
 Allie putting together a POCIS for water sampling. |  Allie excitedly holding up a POCIS. |  Allie holding up the POCIS at South Slough. |
 Allie conducting the water dosing during the sea star experiment. |  Allie collecting gametes for sea star reproduction. |  Allie with a beautiful adult Pycnopodia helianthoides. |
 Allie posing proudly in front of the Strathmann stirrer she built. |  Allie holding an invasive green crab. Excited to be out on an estuary. |  Allie and Kim posing after extensive estuary fieldwork in 2020. |
 Allie taking photos of critters in an eelgrass bed. |  Allie holding her clam samples at the end of a 3-month experiment in 2020. |  Allie analyzing water algal samples in 2020. |
 Allie dosing her clams with pesticides for a chronic exposure study.I was wearing shorts because this was during the 2020 wildfires, meaning it was very hot and the smoke was thick and I was too tired to remember to change into pants before running down to the lab. |  Allie dosing her clams for the beginning of her experiment. |  Allie very pleased to have started her experiment after many hiccups. |
 Allie cleaning clams after collection in Florence, OR.Picture by Steve Rumrill |  Allie collecting clams in Florence, OR.Picture by Steve Rumrill |  Allie posing in the field while collecting clams by hand.Picture by Steve Rumrill |
 Allie holding up a beautiful limpet in Las Cruces, Chile. |  Allie studying piure anatomy under a microscope for cultivation.Las Cruces, Chile |  Allie holding one of her kelp crabs from the hypoxia experiment.Photo taken by Brooke Fitzwater in Las Cruces, Chile. |
 Allie posing near the experiment tanks.Photo taken by Brooke Fitzwater in Las Cruces, Chile. |  Out in the field in Pichilemu |  Out in the field in Pichilemu |
 Fieldwork at Matanzas |  Mentoring undergraduate students and showing them tidepool critters.Las Cruces, Chile |  Fieldwork in Quintay. |
 The team in Montemar after completing fieldwork.Montemar, Chile |  The team after finishing surverying |  Allie diving for barnacles for an experiment.Las Cruces, Chile |
 Conducting quadrat surveys in the intertidal. |  Survey team at ECIM!ECIM, Las Cruces, Chile |  Allie and Kata in Los Molles.Los Molles, Chile |
 The team at Matanzas attempting fieldwork on a big wave day,Photo by Brooke Fitzwater |  Equipo Navarrette, 2016.Las Cruces, Chile |  Allie's first Chilean sea star, 2016.Las Cruces, Chile |