My specific job is to work on the fish model. I am responsible for writing and running the computer code for the model. I am also responsible for developing tools to visualize the output. The model itself is an age/size structured model and is run over the entire South Florida study area. The area is subdivided into 500m square cells. The fish in each cell grow, reproduce and move both within the cell and among neighboring cells. I use my math skills in both model development and computer programming.When I first started college, I was in a Math Education program, but by the end of my first year, I knew that education was not for me. However, I wasn't sure where to turn. I didn't enjoy math for the beauty of it so I knew that pure math wasn't my calling. I was much more interested in how math could be used to solve real world problems. I started taking biology classes since biology had been my second favorite class in high school after math. In an ecology class, the professor told me about an entirely new area of math that I never knew existed-Mathematical Ecology. After completing my B.S. in Math/Environmental Science, a degree program I created at Taylor University, I found the Mathematical Ecology graduate program at the University of Tennessee and was accepted. I am currently in my fifth year. I am hoping to complete my PhD sometime during my sixth year. I was a teaching assistant for one semester for each of my first four years in graduate school. I have spent the rest of my time in graduate school as a research assistant for a project called ATLSS.