Hello! My name is Kayla Dickson and I’m a student researcher at Eastern Washington University. My studies are focused on plant systematics, and I have prior experience in molecular biology, field ecology, and taxonomic research. I'm passionate about uncovering evolutionary relationships between species using both genetic and morphological data. In my current research, I'm applying those same approaches to freshwater sponges by using scanning electron microscopy and genetic techniques to improve species identification in Eastern Washington.