Meet the 2021-2022 Officers
Ray Dueser
President
I am professor emeritus of ecology and wildlife management in Wildland Resources at Utah State University, where I served as Department Head and Associate Dean. I have served as chair of several organizations, including the ESA Western Chapter, the Section on Fish and Wildlife of the National Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges, the Research Committee of the National Association of University Fish and Wildlife Programs, and the USFWS Recovery Team for the recently delisted Delmarva fox squirrel. I began my career on the faculty of Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia, where I started a long-term study of mammals and birds on the Virginia barrier islands. This wilderness coastal landscape has turned out to be a benchmark system for assessing the ecosystem consequences of climate change, sea-level rise and exotic species introductions. I was the lead PI when the NSF designated the barrier islands an LTER site in 1987. The Virginia Coast Reserve LTER program now includes 30 investigators and 50 students from 9 universities. I recently returned to UVa as a Visiting Scholar to continue research and writing. I also teach a course entitled “Water on Earth” which introduces humanities students to the natural sciences in the context of this universally important natural resource.
Scott Klopfer
President - Elect
Scott Klopfer is a Certified Wildlife Biologist and Director of the Conservation Management Institute at Virginia Tech. He has been a member of the Virginia Chapter for over 20 years and has served in a number of capacities. He looks forward to continuing to work on behalf of the VATWS as President-elect.
Joel Snodgrass
Past - President
Dr. Joel Snodgrass is the Head of the Department of Fish and Wildlife Conservation at Virginia Tech. He is also an aquatic ecologist interested in the effects of human induced landscape change on the physical and biotic environment of aquatic systems, and the biology and evolution of aquatic organisms. He is particularly interested in fish and amphibians that inhabit streams and freshwater wetlands.
Grant Sizemore
Secretary
Grant Sizemore earned a B.S. in Zoology and a B.S. in Environmental Science from Miami University (Ohio) and an M.S. in Wildlife Ecology and Conservation from the University of Florida. As an undergraduate student, he conducted field and lab research on the population dynamics of white-footed mice in fragmented forest habitats. As a graduate student, his research focused on the foraging ecology of wading birds in an agricultural landscape within the Greater Everglades Ecosystem. Grant is now the Director of Invasive Species Programs for American Bird Conservancy, a role that has included outreach and wildlife conservation advocacy throughout Virginia. Grant has been a member of The Wildlife Society since 2008, served as a policy intern for TWS in 2010, is an active participant in TWS’ Invasive Species Committee, and is a Certified Wildlife Biologist. He lives in Northern Virginia.
Marcella Kelly
Treasurer
Marcella Kelly has been a member of TWS since 2000 and VA-TWS since 2002. She is a professor at Virginia Tech where she has taught Population Dynamics, Wildlife Field Techniques, and Parameter Estimation. She has conducted research on coyotes, bobcats, and black bears in Virginia. Marcella has also been the advisor for the student chapter of TWS since 2005 and advises the VT-TWS annual camera trapping survey.
Member-at-Large
Stephanie grew up in Maryland on the outskirts of Washington D.C. and since then she’s traveled extensively, visiting 30 countries and spending several years teaching English in Japan and South Korea. She was drawn to the outdoors from an early age through Girl Scouts and developed a passion for wildlife conservation through field studies in British Columbia, Tanzania, Maine and New Hampshire. She is broadly interested in using genetic techniques to manage and conserve animal populations and has worked with a number of taxa including black bears, frogs, salamanders, elephant shrews (sengis), and bats. She received her B.S. from Trinity University and her M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of New Hampshire. Her research at UNH used non-invasive genetic tagging to estimate the size of black bear populations and landscape genetics to explore how natural and anthropogenic influences impact population structure and gene flow in amphibians. As a post-doc at WVU she investigated hybridization patterns and gene expression in King and Clapper Rails in the Pamunkey River in Virginia. She moved to the Richmond area in 2016 when she started as an Assistant Professor at Randolph-Macon College. Stephanie has been pleased to connect with the VA chapter of TWS and see that there is such a great group for learning new skills and offering students a glimpse into professional opportunities in the area.
Elizabeth Hunter
Member-at-large
Dr. Elizabeth Hunter is Assistant Unit Leader of the USGS Virginia Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit at Virginia Tech. Elizabeth earned her MS from the State University of New York - College of Environmental Science and Forestry where she studied Galapagos giant tortoise restoration, and her PhD from the University of Georgia where she studied coastal marsh bird vulnerability to sea level rise. Prior to joining the Virginia Coop Unit, she worked as an Assistant Professor at Georgia Southern University. Elizabeth is a wildlife ecologist interested in conserving species and functioning ecosystems in a rapidly changing world. She primarily studies birds and reptiles and links ecological field data to quantitative models with the end goal of helping wildlife managers and conservation planners make decisions. She is particularly interested in the interactive impacts of climate change on populations and communities as well as species and ecosystem restoration planning.