Lear is an If/Then ambassador and was featured in the Smithsonian's "#IfThenSheCan - The Exhibit", a collection of life-sized 3D-printed statues of role models in STEM.
[1] Lear grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio,[2] where she developed an interest in bats from an early age.
After completing her undergraduate degree in 2011, Lead earned by Fulbright scholarship to monitor Australia's population of the critically endangered Southern bent-wing bat for 14 months.
As part of her PhD program, she spent four summers in Mexico working on conservation of the bat.
[1] Lear is a founding member of the Nivalis Conservation Network, a group of US and Mexican researchers, NGOs, and governmental agencies working on the conservation of the Mexican long-nosed bat.