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I am a PhD Student at the University of Tennessee working with Dr. Daniel Simberloff. I am interested in territorial behaviors – how individuals divide space and resources between themselves, who benefits from these interactions, and how we as researchers estimate territory sizes.

Most of my work thus far as been in anole lizards, a group of tree-dwelling lizards native to the Americas and the Caribbean. Anoles’ colorful throat-fan and headbob displays make them excellent model systems for general questions about territoriality, as their displays are easy (and fun!) to observe and we can conduct studies on them in both the field and in the lab. For details about my current research projects, check out my Research pages!

I am also interested in communicating science to a broader audience through community engagement and science journalism. As researchers, it is easy to get caught up in academic circles and to only surround ourselves with people who think about the same things we do. This creates an artificial divide between scientists and the public, where we assume that they don’t care about our work (they often do) and they assume we are socially-awkward elites (we usually aren’t).

I go out of my way to interact with members of my community through school visits, volunteer opportunities, and tabling events to combat stereotypes about what real scientists look like. I am also pursuing a burgeoning interest in writing popular science articles. I am also pursuing a concurrent Masters of Journalism with an emphasis in Science Writing to further explore this field. Check out my Outreach and Writing pages to keep up with my science communication efforts!

About Me

Jordan was born and raised in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado Springs, CO. She moved to San Antonio, TX to attend Trinity University, where she learned to hate chiggers and love breakfast tacos. She graduated with honors from Trinity with a Bachelors of Science in Biology and a Bachelors of Arts in Mathematics, and immediately moved on to a PhD program at the University of Tennessee Knoxville. She is currently a 6th year in Dr. Daniel Simberloff’s laboratory in the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Department at the University of Tennessee Knoxville. She loves anoles for their beautiful green and pink coloring, their self-important push-up displays, and their smug faces. She does ask, however, that you do not confuse her love for lizards as a general interest in all reptiles (Keep your snakes to yourself, she does not like snakes). After graduating with her PhD, she has a real goal of becoming a professor at a liberal arts college, and a secret goal of becoming a science journalist.