Hi, I'm Stella. I'm an integrative ecologist with broad interests. You can find me exploring species interactions, movement ecology, thermal biology, metabolism, diet composition, biodiversity conservation, and about a dozen other topics. I've worked with everything from protists to spiders to birds, although I have developed a particular fondness for raptors and carnivores. 

I'm a postdoctoral researcher with the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute. I am currently focused on mapping habitat suitability of the endangered Houbara Bustard in Morocco. I additionally work with the California Carnivores Program to perform analyses that inform puma conservation.

As part of my post-doc with the Smithsonian, I collaborated with the Giraffe Conservation Foundation in 2024-2025 to understand how fences alter the movement of Masai giraffe. From 2022-2024, I was the Senior Scientist for the Forest Park Living Lab via the Living Earth Collaborative at Washington University in St. Louis. My research there focused on the community movement ecology of St. Louis' urban wildlife. I completed my PhD in 2022 in the DeLong lab, studying metabolism, foraging behavior, and diet composition of wolf spiders.

Wanna chat? Contact me at uiterwaals @ si.edu or find me on ResearchGate or iNaturalist.