Insects, science, and discovery, for as long as I can remember, have stood at the core of who I am. I was exposed to these influences early by my father who, himself an aquatic entomologist, introduced me to the profound diversity of nature. I grew up in Conifer, a small rural town sitting at an elevation of ~8,500 ft (2590.8 m) in the middle of the Colorado Rocky Mountains. I had access to over 700 acres of privately owned wilderness which fostered my love of insects and passions for naturalism. I pursued these passions into high school, working summers as a Teen Science Scholar and Teen Science Mentor at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science under Entomology Curator Dr. Frank Krell, Denver Colorado, U.S.A. I earned my Bachelor of Science at Colorado State University majoring in biochemistry and minoring in entomology, under the mentorship of such renowned entomologists as Drs. Paul Ode, Boris Kondratieff, and Whitney Cranshaw. During my undergraduate, I served as a UTA for several introductory biology labs and gained research experience working in several labs. I started my work with Dr. Paul Ode and his biological control lab where I studied competition between two parasitoid wasps. I was later hired by wildlife biologist Robert Schorr of the Colorado Natural Heritage Program to conduct research on the suspected myrmecophily (ant mutualism) of the Hops Blue Butterfly, a project funded with help from the Odell Brewing Company. I discovered seven different myrmecophilous relationships that the Hops Blue participated in. I was then hired for a second summer by the Colorado Natural Heritage Program to investigate bioluminescent fireflies along the Front Range of Colorado. I described two new species in the genus I studied and then was offered a position as a vector entomologist by Dr. Corey Campbell, a molecular biologist at Colorado State University's Arthropod-borne Infectious Disease Lab and Infectious Disease Annex. I worked as a vector entomologist in these labs for two years. I helped discover a mechanistic relationship between two transcription factors and pesticide resistance in the Yellow Fever Mosquito. Currently, I work with Drs. Alex Wild and Ulrich Mueller on the ecology, evolution, and behavior of leafcutting ants and their only known predators, the aptly-named tank army ants.