B.A. Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. Princeton University.

Vale received her undergraduate degree in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from Princeton University in 2019. During her undergrad, she joined Dr. Daniel Sigman’s lab where she studied nutrient biogeochemistry of coral reef systems. During her summers, she conducted research under Dr. Samantha de Putron at BIOS, Dr. Anne Cohen at MIT-WHOI-BIOS, and Dr. Hollie Putnam at URI-HIMB. She studied the eco-physiology and environmental epigenetics of reef-building corals. After graduating, she joined Dr. Antonio Giraldez’s lab at Yale as a postgraduate associate. There, she studied RNA decay mechanisms and their role in the maternal-to-zygotic transition in Zebrafish.

Vale joined the Extavour lab through the OEB graduate training program with an interest in understanding how the immediate abiotic environment and biotic interactions drive an organism’s phenotype, ecological patterning, and evolutionary processes through the interaction of genetics, and epigenetics. After starting her PhD in our lab based on her initial in incorporating developmental biology into her view of evolution, she soon realized that her interests lay more in adaptation and speciation genomics. She thus transferred to the lab of Robin Hopkins, where she continues to pursue her PhD studies.