Student Mentorship

A large fraction of my time in recent years was spent providing mentorship to students in applied ecology and fisheries and wildlife. This took a variety of forms, including mentoring roles where I directly guided students through analyses, writing, and publication, to a less involved consulting role where students sought out advice on specific analyses. Here is a snapshot of this work and some of the students I have mentored. 
Sydney Manning - Undergraduate Student at Michigan State University
  • Sydney developed mathematical models of wild turkey management systems and used stochastic simulation to assess performance of multi-year harvest management cycles with time-lagged assessment and harvest decisions. This work resulted in a publication in the Journal of Wildlife Management.
  • Current Position: Senior Research Associate, University of North Texas School of Pharmacy
Eamon Harrity - Graduate Student at University of Idaho
  • Eamon developed hierarchical models to predict breeding-season habitat quality for the endangered Yuma Ridgway's rail, and a user-friendly interface to map range-wide habitat suitability using Google Earth Engine (GEE). Importantly, these range-wide habitat maps are easy to update as environmental conditions change using open-source code and the GEE platform. This work resulted in a publication in Biological Conservation.
  • Current Position: Wildlife Project Manager, Sky Island Alliance
Jennifer Smith - Graduate Student at Michigan State University
  • Jen used stochastic simulation to evaluate statistical performance of spatial capture-recapture models for estimating black bear density at landscape scales in Michigan using a hair-snare grid that was designed for estimating bear abundance via traditional capture-recapture methods. This work resulted in a publication in PLOS ONE.​
  • Current Position: Research Specialist, University of California, Davis
Nolan Helmstetter - Undergraduate Student at University of Idaho
  • ​Nolan developed range-wide habitat suitability models for the threatened northern Idaho ground squirrel using species distribution models (SDMs). A large component of this work was assessing the implications of different methods for developing spatially-transferable SDMs to inform species conservation, specifically focused on optimization of model complexity for prediction using lasso regression and spatially-explicit cross validation. This work resulted in a publication in Diversity and Distributions.
  • Current Position: M.S. Student, University of Idaho
Seth Herbst - Graduate Student at Michigan State University
  • Seth developed a state-space model to estimate movement and fishing mortality for a walleye metapopulation inhabiting a chain-lake system in northern Michigan, and fit the model to tag-recovery and live-recapture data using Bayesian methods. He also developed a mathematical model of walleye population and harvest dynamics for these chain lakes, and used stochastic simulation to assess risk of over-harvest in the presence of among-lake movement. This work resulted in publications in Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences and the North American Journal of Fisheries Management.
  • Current Position: Aquatic Species & Regulatory Affairs Unit Manager, Michigan Department of Natural Resources
Ian Riley - Graduate Student at University of Idaho
  • Ian studied factors that influence visual and auditory detection of greater sage-grouse leks in southern Idaho, as well as the efficacy of fecal sampling for monitoring productivity of sage-grouse broods. This work resulted in a publications in the Journal of Wildlife Management and Journal of Field Ornithology.
  • Current Position: Assistant Wildlife Area Manager, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife