Currently I am the Gartersnakes Projects Coordinator in the Terrestrial Wildlife Branch at Arizona Game and Fish (AZGFD) working with two species of gartersnakes, Thamnophis eques (northern Mexican gartersnake) and T. rufipunctatus (narrow-headed gartersnake) listed at Threatened under the Endangered Species Act. This is an exciting position that allows me to conduct applied research, collaborate with researchers and citizen scientists, and work with colleagues at the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, U.S. Forest Service, Bureau or Land Management, Bureau of Reclamation, and Zoos to further the recovery of these threatened species. In addition, I assist fellow AZGFD colleagues on projects with sensitive and threatened amphibians and reptiles in Arizona.
I consider myself a herp-centric community ecologist and my research interests are geographically broad ranging from tropical to desert ecosystems and is centered on the ecology and conservation of amphibians and reptiles. The species and communities I study, whether in deserts or the tropics, face similar pressures from disease, climate change, habitat loss. I continue to work on these diverse topics at my current position because conservation threats and ecological patterns patterns across ecosystems and diverse taxa can help inform local problems.
I apply multiple field approaches in my work that integrates observational studies, manipulative field experiments, mark-recapture, and telemetry to understand individual species and community relationships to their environment in a rapidly changing world. To supplement the field component I rely heavily on natural history museum collections to infer changes in body size and range shifts as species face mounting stress from disease, climate change, and other threats.
I consider myself a herp-centric community ecologist and my research interests are geographically broad ranging from tropical to desert ecosystems and is centered on the ecology and conservation of amphibians and reptiles. The species and communities I study, whether in deserts or the tropics, face similar pressures from disease, climate change, habitat loss. I continue to work on these diverse topics at my current position because conservation threats and ecological patterns patterns across ecosystems and diverse taxa can help inform local problems.
I apply multiple field approaches in my work that integrates observational studies, manipulative field experiments, mark-recapture, and telemetry to understand individual species and community relationships to their environment in a rapidly changing world. To supplement the field component I rely heavily on natural history museum collections to infer changes in body size and range shifts as species face mounting stress from disease, climate change, and other threats.
