Broadly I am interested in understanding how humans and wildlife can coexist in shared landscapes that are frequently changing. My professional interests span wildlife, landscape, and molecular ecology, and I am passionate about uniting scientific research with conservation. I am particularly drawn to studying human-wildlife interactions in non-protected areas, where tradeoffs between biodiversity conservation and land development can have cascading effects on both wildlife and human communities. My goal is to methodologically design my projects to be applicable to any system for which we want to better understand human-wildlife interactions.
CURRENT RESEARCH
My current research focuses on the spatial ecology and landscape genetics of lions in Laikipia, Kenya. I am interested in using these types of data to construct predictive models that can better inform land management decisions, and specifically predictions of wildlife survival under different coexistence strategies.
PREVIOUS RESEARCH
Prior to graduate school, I worked on several landscape genetics projects with conservation and vector control applications. These projected spanned systems in North America (white footed mice (Peromyscus leucopus) connectivity in New England old field systems), South America (vector control of the Norway rat (Rattus norvegicus); you can read more about results from this project here and here), and East Africa (vector control of the tsetse fly (Glossina fuscipes); some project results here).