About

I'm an avian ecologist and conservation biologist. Currently I work as an ornithologist at the Illinois Natural History Survey (INHS), alongside the many wildlife biologists in the Population and Community Ecology Laboratory (PaCE Lab). We are housed under the umbrella of the Prairie Research Institute at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. 

When I'm not capturing birds or in the lab, you can find me in my garden fighting off mint plants or curled up in my hammock reading.

I work at the intersection of modeling, conservation genomics, and ecology. My research integrates spatial, temporal, and behavioral data to understand pressures faced by migratory birds throughout their annual cycles, migratory bird physiology and food webs, and impacts of resource pulses like mast seeding on bird populations. I focus primarily on species using wetlands, floodplains, and oak savannas.

My collaborators include researchers at the University of Missouri St. Louis, Audubon Great Lakes, the National Audubon Society, and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

I love forming collaborations, and periodically hire technicians to help with fieldwork and laboratory work and mentor volunteers. 

Technicians and volunteers have the opportunity to learn multi-species point count, mist-netting, nest searching, working in wetlands and savannas, taking blood samples from birds, mast seeding surveys, eDNA field and lab techniques, programming in R, and scientific writing. 

If you would like to collaborate, volunteer, or be considered for a field technician position, please email me at rahlin1 [at] illinois [dot] edu.

If you need a recommendation letter from me please send me a note and fill out this form.