Courses:

BIO 401 Conservation Biology
BIO 427 Wildlife Management

Research Interests:

Conservation biology and wildlife ecology, especially as relevant to the management of biodiversity. I'm interested in how vertebrate species use and partition resources in their environment, and how this affects their abundance and distribution. Particular interests include quantifying the basic ecology of endangered species; techniques for inventorying and monitoring wildlife populations; and using a combination of empirical and theoretical approaches to assess how environmental change, such as climate change, will affect the distribution of mammal species.

Advising Interests:

Conservation biology, wildlife management, vertebrate ecology, mammalogy, environmental science, history of biology, relationship between science and policy.

Current Research Projects:
Grinnell Resurvey of the Mammals of the Lassen Region of Northern California:
I am determining the current distribution of small- and medium-sized mammals along an elevational and precipitation gradient, as compared to surveys conducted by Joseph Grinnell and his colleagues in the 1920s. My study area ranges from the Sacramento River to the Nevada border and includes Lassen Volcanic National Park, Eagle Lake, and the Madeline Plains. This project is the second facet of the "Grinnell Resurvey Project" at UC Berkeley's Museum of Vertebrate Zoology.

Ecology and Conservation of the Sierra Nevada Red Fox:
I am working with a suite of state and federal agencies to document the distribution and basic ecology of the Sierra Nevada red fox, one of California's rarest and least-studied carnivore species. For my dissertation, I conducted a basic ecology study of the only known population, in the Lassen Peak region of northern California, and I am now using these results to develop management and research recommendations.