I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife Sciences at Virginia Tech. My research includes studies of both wildlife behavioral ecology (in the U.S. and internationally) and the restoration of tropical native forests (in Madagascar). I teach an undergraduate course in Principles of Fisheries and Wildlife Management (FiW 2114) and a graduate course in Foundations of Fisheries and Wildlife Population Ecology (FiW 5984).

Unifying themes in my domestic and international research projects include:

• Studying how behaviorally-mediated interactions between multiple species influence population dynamics and community structure in ways that cannot be predicted from examining pairs of species alone,
• Understanding how the release of meso-predators, whether caused by human hunting or development activities that eliminate endemic top predators, impacts threatened and endangered prey species, through lethal and sub-lethal effects, and
• Bringing together ecological and natural resource management theories to best manage ecosystems at the landscape level for wildlife movement and sustainable resource extraction.

I have worked in Madagascar since 1997 on predator-prey ecology in fragmented rainforest landscapes and community-based native tree restoration. My dissertation work focused on behavioral and ecological interactions between raptors and lemurs in Ranomafana National Park, Madagascar. I have worked with school kids and local villages around this park since 2000 to plant native tree species to benefit both human and wildlife populations. I also have been working with USAID Madagascar since 2005 to explore the potential for passive vs. active restoration of degraded rainforests in eastern Madagascar, specifically in Ambohilero Classified Forest. I have been asked to participate in the development of a national strategic plan for forest restoration in Madagascar and I am beginning to work with the Malagasy Department of Water and Forests, USAID, Conservation International, WWF, and the University of Antananarivo Madagascar to design a training program for implementation of this strategic plan.

Since 2004, I have also been working on the Atlantic Coast of the United States on various projects related to the conservation of migratory and breeding shorebirds (red knots, piping plovers, Wilson’s Plovers, etc.).  The shorebird projects have focused on identifying the factors that might regulate these threatened and endangered species during migratory stopover and the impacts of human development, include wind energy development, on these same populations. 

For more information, please see my C.V. or each individual project page.  Please feel free to contact me with any questions.