Illegal logging and timber trade, valued at $50-$150B annually, is estimated to account for 30-50% of all internationally traded timber, cost $5B in lost revenue to governments, and negatively impact biodiversity, climate, and local communities. The Lacey Act fosters forest legality by restricting importation of unlawfully harvested goods into the US. This act requires declaring the harvested species and its country of origin.

Computational models are essential tools that can be used to simultaneously explain and guide biological intuition. My lab employs agent-based modeling, machine learning, and dynamical systems to explain biological observations and to uncover design principles that drive individual cellular decisions as well as cell population dynamics. We are interested in the inherent multiscale nature of biology, with a specific focus on system-level dynamics that emerge from interactions of simpler individual-level modules.