I'm Hannah, a doctoral researcher in Ecology & Evolutionary Biology at Rice University. My current research projects generally focus on the temporal community structure of species' phenologies 🌸🪺🍂 (seasonal timing of life cycle events), diel activities ☀️🌙, and interactions (ex:🪻↔🐝 🦉↔🐭), with thematic links to how communities shift under climate change and human disturbance.

Much of my interest in this focus area grew from the accumulation of everyday experiences noting how life percieves and responds to the passage of time, as well as from my prior research experiences investigating hormonal mechanisms regulating how organisms interpret temporal information in their environments. In my work, I employ a combination of (some) field and (mostly) wet lab + computational approaches that loosely draw from formal training in computer science. I am extremely grateful that my research is supported by an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship--my research journey quite literally would not have been possible without it and without the support of my mentors (you know who you are).

Other potential items of interest:

• 👯 I’m open to collaborate on designing a meaningful internship experience for Fall 2025. The internship is expected to have a research component to it, and the stipend would come from my fellowship, NOT from the organization hosting the internship. Being able to get some more exposure to software development/AI would be a plus.
• 💬 Ask me about anything related to the research infrastructure of long-term ecological monitoring projects. There are a few different ways this has been done with their own advantages and disadvantages, and I often wonder how ecologists and conservation biologists can make the most of these projects moving forward.
• 🌱 I’m casually learning about corporate sustainability initiatives (and their lack thereof) to enhance my ability to provide professional/career development resources for graduate student peers, in my role as Sustainability Director of Rice's Graduate Student Association.
• 📫 I can be reached at hannah [dot] yin [at] rice [dot] edu