JULIA SILVA SEIXAS

Welcome! My name is Julia Silva Seixas (two last names, no middle name) and I was born and raised in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

I'm a wildlife biologist. I received a B.S. in Biology and a minor in Bioethics and Medical Humanities at The Pennsylvania State University and a MS in Forestry and Natural Resources at the University of Georgia. I am currently a DVM/Ph.D. student at University of Georgia, pursuing my doctorate at the Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources.

During my time at Penn State, I joined the Schreyer Honors College and wrote an undergraduate thesis on elk conservation. It concerned validating a new method of pregnancy testing, which was supported to be more convenient for field use by the Pennsylvania Game Commission. To view the full thesis, please click here. This work was also published by the Journal of Wildlife Diseases.

My MS research focused on the urbanization of the White Ibis (Eudocimus albus), particularly its transition to breeding in urban environments. Main topics studied included comparing the productivity (i.e., number of eggs/young per nest, chicks fledged, etc) of an urban colony in south Florida to natural rookeries in the Everglades, investigating a nestling mortality event due to West Nile virus at the urban colony, the dynamics of Salmonella and avian influenza in nestlings, and comparing the diets and growth rates of urban and natural chicks. Click here to view the list of publications related to this project.