Current Lab Members
Beth Gardner Beth is an Associate Professor in the School of Environmental and Forest Sciences and leads the Quantitative Ecology Lab at the University of Washington. Her research interests include development of spatial capture-recapture models, hierarchical models of animal abundance and occurrence (e.g., site-occupancy models), Bayesian analysis in ecology, and spatial modeling. See Beth’s page for more info.
Amelia DuVall Amelia is a quantitative ecologist specializing in the development of statistical models for large and complex ecological datasets to inform wildlife conservation. Her research primarily focuses on seabirds, one of the most threatened groups of vertebrates in the world. Geographically, her work spans island ecosystems across the Pacific, including the California Channel Islands, French Polynesia, and southern Japan. Amelia received her PhD from the University of Washington under Dr Sarah Converse in 2025, where my dissertation focused on population ecology and decision analysis to inform conservation of seabirds at Channel Islands National Park. Her postdoctoral work is focused on movement ecology and conservation of tropical seabirds at Tetiaroa Atoll, French Polynesia. She will be 1) applying hidden Markov models to assess overlap with a proposed marine protected area in French Polynesia; 2) using few-shot transfer learning with BirdNET to analyze acoustic data and investigate seabird distribution, habitat associations, and phenology; and 3) developing an integrated data model to predict seabird responses to invasive rat eradication to inform future conservation efforts.
Sierra Gillman Sierra is a PhD student, NSF Graduate Research Fellow, and ARCS Scholar with broad interests in understanding how wildlife respond to anthropogenic pressures, non-invasive monitoring techniques, and population dynamics. For her current project, she is using quantitative modeling methods to estimate abundance of marine birds in Puget Sound.
Cameron Ho Cameron is an MS student working on scavengers in Yellowstone National Park. Bio and pic to be updated soon!
Kaeli Swift Kaeli is a postdoctoral scholar working on the reproductive ecology of the Tinian monarch, a small, formally listed songbird whose range is restricted to a single island in the Northern Mariana Islands. Kaeli earned her MS in 2015, followed by her PhD in 2018, where she studied under Dr. John Marzluff. Her graduate work focused on the death behaviors of the American crow. Her research interests reflect a passion for avian ecology, behavior, and conservation. Kaeli is a former TEDx speaker and a devoted science communicator. She can be found on her blog or on twitter/IG at @corvidresearch.
Undergraduate Capstone Lab Members
Will be taking new capstones next year.
Former Lab Members
Eve M. Hallock, MS, 2022 – 2025. Working for Division of Fish and Wildlife, Northern Marianas Islands.
Marcela Todd Zaragoza, MS, 2022 – 2025. Working for Washington Department of Natural Resources
Samantha Zwicker, PhD. 2017 – 2023. Working for Hoja Nueva.
Sarah Bassing, PhD. 2017 – 2022. Faculty member at Montana State University.
Lisanne Petracca, post-doc 2020 – 2022. Faculty at Texas A&M Kingsville.
Jamie Brusa, post doc 2020 – 2022. Research associate with NOAA.
Olivia Sanderfoot, PhD 2017-2021. Currently a post-doc at UCLA.
Robbie Emmet, PhD 2017-2021. Researcher with USDA.
Evan Adams, post-doc 2016-2017. Researcher at BRI.
Mike Cove, PhD 2011-2016. Research scientist at NCSU.
Nathan Hostetter, PhD 2012-2016. Assistant unit leader at the NCSU co-op unit.
Holly Goyert, post doc 2014-2015. Research scientist at NOAA.
Rahel Sollmann, post-doc 2011-2015. Research scientist at the IZW in Berlin, Germany.
Earvin Balderama, post-doc 2012-2014. Faculty member at Frensno State University.
Nick Flanders, MS 2011-2014. Completed PhD at Old Dominion University.
Bryan Will, Masters FWCB 2011-2013
Former Undergraduate Capstone Lab Members
Ivy Terry, UW ESRM 2017
Kristina Randrup, UW ESRM 2018
Lars Nelson, UW ESRM 2019
Drew Harmon, UW ESRM 2020
Kathryn McVay, UW ESRM 2020
Alyssa Ryser, UW ESRM 2021
Caitlyn Bell, UW ESRM 2021
Sophia Romero, UW ESRM 2022
Celine Boillat, UW ESRM 2022
Donovan Murphy, UW ESRM 2022
Angela Chappa Larrea, UW ESRM 2022
Visiting Fellows
Gabriel Penido (PhD student from Brazil). 2014-2015
Rebeca Barreto (PhD student from Brazil) 2015
Isabel Garcia Barón (PhD student from Spain) 2017