i n  a  n u t s h e l l

I earned my Ph.D. at the University of New Mexico in 2006, studying the temporal dynamics in the structure and function of the desert rodent community at Jim Brown's LTREB site near Portal, AZ. Concurrently, I also conducted extensive field research on bats throughout the public lands of New Mexico. I was a postdoctoral fellow in macroecology at Utah State University until 2011, working in the wonderful Weecology lab.

I am interested in understanding the mechanisms underlying community assembly across space and time and, therefore, biodiversity and dynamics in this changing world. To this end, I have used a combination of field techniques and ecoinformatics. My field experience has encompassed rodents, bats, and cougars, primarily in the southwestern U.S., and my informatics experience has involved such databases as the Breeding Bird Survey and Forest Inventory Analysis, as well as leading an effort to create the first mammal community database.

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t h e  l a t e s t

I am currently the vertebrate ecologist at the National Ecological Observatory Network. This means that I am responsible for designing the small mammal and breeding bird abundance and diversity sampling for the Observatory. I also am responsible for overseeing the implementation of the designs at the 60 sites in the 20 ecoclimatic domains throughout the country. I have been a proponent of open science and long-term studies and interested in broad ecological questions throughout my career, so I am excited to be a part of building the biggest ecological research project ever.


Check out my latest science on my Google Scholar page.