About
Aside from looking for salamanders, frogs, and worms with my daughter, I am broadly interested in the mechanisms of species range limitations and how disturbance (climate change and habitat fragmentation) influences species distribution patterns and extinction processes. My research focuses on using an integrative approach to understanding parrot distributions; the ecology, biogeography, and assembly of vertebrate communities; and extinction in parrots and parasites.
I am in my last semester of my PhD program and will be defending my dissertation in December! In my dissertation, I explore the extinction of the Carolina Parakeet, the only parrot endemic to the United States, in addition to creating a framework to prioritizing global parrot diversity conservation in the face of climate change. Despite being PhD candidate, I have published research ranging from championing parasite conservation, to large scale rodent diversity, to theoretical ecology. My CV can be found here.
Prior to graduate school, I conducted research on Monk Parakeets in efforts to come up with a non-lethal method of preventing them from nesting on utility poles - this work can be found here! This research has led to a patent and an agreement with a Connecticut-based manufacturer to build devices we believe will be a solution that both utility companies and those who care deeply for these parrots will support. For more information, please see this article. Lastly, to burnish my Monk Parakeet cred, I authored the revision of the Birds of North America account which will be published next month by Cornell University and AOU!
Joined
October 2016
