I am currently a master’s student in Dr. Kelley Stewart’s Wildlife Ecology and Conservation Lab at the University of Nevada, Reno, and just finishing up my position as the statewide Wildlife Health Technician for the Nevada Department of Wildlife. I am passionate about mammal ecology and the ways in which high-quality research can shed light on patterns in animal movement, behavior, and resource selection. My graduate research centers on black bear ecology in Nevada, with a particular focus on habitat selection and the effects of the expanding urban interface. Throughout my career, I’ve been fortunate to work with a variety of species across the western U.S., including pronghorn, bighorn sheep, mountain lions, mountain goats , wolves, mule deer, and of course, the American black bear. In the future, I hope to continue conducting meaningful research while also engaging the public in conversations about wildlife conservation.

I recently completed my Master of Environmental Science and Management at UC Santa Barbara’s Bren School, where I specialized in Conservation Planning. My graduate work focused on multi-species connectivity modeling and conservation prioritization to support landscape-scale planning efforts along California’s Central Coast. Prior to grad school, I worked as a consulting wildlife biologist and botanist, conducting special-status species surveys, habitat assessments, and biological construction monitoring. I’ve worked with a variety of taxa, including California tiger salamanders and California red-legged frogs, and many more! I’m passionate about biodiversity conservation, landscape ecology, and making science actionable through data-driven solutions! 

I am currently a master’s student in the Ecology Graduate Group in Fraser Shilling’s Road Ecology Lab at UC Davis. My research uses roadkill and camera trap data to understand how wildlife (mainly mammals) interact with, behave, and move in response to road infrastructure in California. I am interested in continuing my career in topics related to road and urban ecology, animal movement and behavior, and applied landscape-scale conservation work. Prior to graduate school I worked as a biologist for an environmental consulting firm and specialized in road ecology and special-status herps in California.

Jamie is second year PhD student at the UC Santa Barbara Bren School of Environmental Science & Management where she is studying restoration ecology and wildlife population dynamics in the coastal dune ecosystem. She earned her Bachelor of Science in Ecology and Systematic Biology from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, and has worked as a wildlife biologist on the central coast for over 15 years. In 2020 she earned her Master’s in Environmental Science and Management at Bren, specializing in conservation planning and environmental data science. Her Master’s thesis involved updating habitat connectivity assessments for The Nature Conservancy and the Staying Connected Initiative in the Adirondack Mountains. 

She is passionate about wildlife conservation and started her career by tracking California condors at Hi Mountain Lookout and studying kangaroo rat ecology in the Guadalupe-Nipomo Dunes and Carrizo Plains National Monument. Looking to expand her work abroad, she spent time in the tropics studying avian demography and breeding biology in the Amazon basin and Andean cloud forest in Peru, banding forest birds in Hawai’i, and studying mantled howler monkey foraging ecology in Costa Rica. For several years, she has worked for Point Blue Conservation Science at Vandenberg Space Force Base, studying snowy plover productivity and survivorship and coastal dune ecology.

When not climbing sand dunes looking for plover chicks on Vandenberg’s beaches, she enjoys native plant gardening, harboring native bees in her yard, baking goodies with locally-grown fruit, and photographing wild things.