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Current Masters of Science Graduate Students
Sam Arnold
My M.S. Project studies the ecology of migratory waterbirds in the Chesapeake Bay area. Living shorelines are an important erosion control mechanism that accommodate the needs of waterbirds much better than bulkheads or revetements. I seek to know what factors such as urbanization and food availability affect whether a species uses a living shoreline. I am particularly interested in the varying preferences of heron species like the green heron, great blue heron, and yellow-crowned night heron.
Nhu-Lan Pho
Nhu-Lan's research focuses on the impact of legislation at various levels of government on invasive species management. Using Bayesian statistics, she hopes to develop predictive models to assess the effectiveness of different management strategies. Her work aims to bridge policy and ecological science, providing data-driven insights to improve environmental decision-making.
Justin Biggerstaff
Justin Biggerstaff is leading a project to study the habitat use of Barred Owls across the urbanization gradient. He is primarily interested in the interaction between roadside habitat use and urbanization, and how this relates to vehicular-based mortality patterns in owls. Additionally, he is interested to see if a difference exists in these patterns during the breeding versus non-breeding seasons. He hopes that his eventual results will help to inform urban conservation practices and highlight a need to investigate less studied periods of life history.
Previous Masters of Science Graduate Students:
2022 Matthew Kane. Following the frogs: The terrestrial habitat of Virginian anurans.
2021 Delaney Costante. Endangered Species Act: Quantifying threats impacting listing. Co-advised with Dr. Aaron Haines, Millersville University.
2020 Robert Galvin. A comparison of shorebird habitat use between living shorelines and natural fringing marshes. Co-advised with Dr. Randolph Chambers, W&M.
2019 Samuel Mason. Metapopulation dynamics of salt-marsh butterfly.
2018 Dylan Simpson. Associations between forest fragmentation and zoonotic diseases.
2016 Angela Zappalla. Factors affecting temporal variation in occupancy of two common species of butterflies in woodlands of the eastern United States, Papilio glaucus and Eurytides marcellus.
2015 Katherine MacCormick. Spatial modeling of a realized niche: Investigating the invasion of sweet fennel (Foeniculum vulgare Mill.) into coastal habitats of Virginia’s Eastern Shore.
2015 Vitek Jirinec. Wood Thrush (Hylocichla mustelina) habitat use on the breeding grounds in coastal Virginia.
2014 Jessica Pouder. Using human footprint models and land cover variability to predict ecological processes.
2013 Robert Isdell. Anthropogenic modifications of connectivity at the aquatic-terrestrial ecotone in the Chesapeake Bay. Co-advised with Dr. Randolph Chambers, W&M.
2013 Morgan Nicolli. Is occupancy modeling a feasible alternative to collecting demography data?
2012 Daniel Ramos. Using a multi-scale life-history approach to explore occupancy patterns of pond-breeding anurans in Eastern Virginia.
2011 Micah Scholer. Land cover and topographic effects on cavity nesting owl occurrence and the role of species interactions in structuring cavity-nesting owl communities. Co-advised with James Belthoff, Boise State University.
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