Bio & Educational Statement

I was born and raised in Tahiti (French Polynesia). Growing-up in this type of environment, with these natural landscapes, triggered my fascination for Biology. Since I was very young, I always knew I wanted to be a biologist and paleontologist. During my first two years of College at the University of French Polynesia, I completed classes encompassing many levels of general biology, evolutionary biology, and paleontology; these classes made me even more passionate about the evolution of life on earth. At the age of 20, I moved to France to finish my B.S. in Biology- Ecology (South of Paris) and I earned an M.S. in Systematics-Evolution-Paleontology (in Paris). I moved to Montana and began pursuing my PhD at Montana State University in 2010 and graduated with a doctoral degree in Earth Sciences in 2015.

Thanks to my mentor and PhD advisor Dr. Jack Horner, I started doing field work in Montana almost every summer for about 8 years after I graduated high school.  Now my research is almost entirely lab-based,  but I want to combine a research program that involves both field and lab work in the future.