I am a biodiversity enthusiast and volunteer research associate in the Entomology department of the California Academy of Sciences and in the Department of Plant Sciences at UC Davis. I've been photographing, collecting and trying to identify California arthropods since 2007 and I have slowly developed some expertise in identifying spiders found in western North America. I am also generally interested in terrestrial and freshwater arthropods in North America, with a particular focus on small or obscure taxa that require microscopic examination to document their diversity.

I have also been studying the lichens and bryophytes of California over the last couple of years, although I am still relatively new to those fields.

In addition, I am an experienced birder and a lapsed California "county birder", although that interest has gotten less attention over the last five years or so.

For those who are reluctant to collect insects or spiders, here is an excellent article by Greg Pohl that gives an entomologist's point of view:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228500262_Why_we_kill_bugs-the_case_for_collecting_insects

For my reference in helping other folks:
https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/how-to-turn-multiple-observations-into-a-single-observation/9838

Spider eye arrangement article from Lynette Elliott:
https://bugguide.net/node/view/84423

Languages spoken: English, a little bit of German.

Note: From September 2023 to January 2024, my compound microscope was mis-calibrated and the L-shaped scale bars shown in images for measuring spore lengths, etc. ended up over-estimating size by roughly a factor of 1.6. I have corrected some of these measurements in the text.