Karinne is a third-year undergraduate at Yale College from Ann Arbor, Michigan. She is majoring in Ecology & Evolutionary Biology on the Biodiversity and the Environment track and is interested in tropical bird communities. During the summer of 2023, she explored the driving factors of Ranavirus epidemics in wood frogs as an Ingalls Field Ecology Intern at the Yale-Myers Forest. In January 2024, as a Darwin200 Darwin Leader, she journeyed to Chile’s Puerto Williams to investigate threats to shorebirds in collaboration with the Cape Horn International Center. This past summer, as a Tropical Resources Institute Fellow through the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute on Panama’s Barro Colorado Island, she assessed the predation pressure of insect herbivores across the secondary succession of tropical forests. As a member of the Young Climate Prize Cycle 02 Cohort, she leads “Taking Flight,” an educational initiative to inspire a new generation of climate leaders by fostering an environmental ethic among youth through the magic of birding. On campus, she serves as President of the Yale Ecology & Evolutionary Biology Undergraduate Group (YEEBUG) and Co-President of the Yale Student Birding Association. Karinne hopes to pursue an academic career, following her passions for conservation, education, and inclusivity. Read more about her work on her website.
