My research interests generally involve the integration of long-term, high-resolution data sets to gain a more comprehensive understanding of animal behavior at the individual and population scales. I am currently a quantitative disease ecologist with the Wildlife Futures Program at the University of Pennsylvania, where I am primarily leveraging citizen science data sets to examine the lasting impacts of West Nile virus (WNV) on Pennsylvania breeding birds, with hopes to extend our approach to the broader northeastern United States. I have also done some more focused work to aid state managers in developing harvest-independent monitoring indices for Ruffed Grouse, a game bird species of conservation concern that has been particularly impacted by WNV.

My dissertation work focused on the movement and foraging ecology of brown pelicans (Pelecanus occidentalis), using biologging and remote sensing technologies to determine how within-individual variability defines foraging strategies, and the degree to which breeding populations can modify foraging distributions in response to increased energetic demand. Our ongoing work seeks to identify terrestrial conditions that impact recruitment and productivity of seabird colonies on Gulf barrier islands, characterize important linkages between breeding and foraging grounds throughout the Gulf coast, and identify environmental cues that shape pelican foraging strategies in real time. I have also recently worked for the US Geological Survey, where I monitored shorebird responses to barrier island restoration and tropical storm activity.

I previously received my B.SC. in Resource Biology and Biodiversity from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette in 2009, a M.SC. in Population and Conservation Biology from Texas State University – San Marcos in 2012, and my PhD in Ecology & Evolutionary Biology from Tulane University in 2018. My thesis work with reddish egrets (Egretta rufescens) contributed to four publications that have since been referenced in several of the species’ conservation plans. For more information on all of my projects, see my Research page.