News

Two new graduate students have joined the lab in the last several months. Nate Redon will be working on a project investigating movement and demography of the Washington State-endangered Cascade red fox. Eve Hallock, co-advised by Dr. Beth Gardner, will be working on our ongoing seabird research at Tetiaroa Atoll. Finally, Dr. Matt Farr joined the lab as a post-doc to lead a project investigating trends and distribution of seaducks in the Salish Sea.

Liam Pendleton has recently joined the QCons Lab as a MS student. Liam will be working on Pigeon Guillemot foraging ecology and demography in Puget Sound. Welcome Liam!

QCons Lab post-doc Staci Amburgey has been selected as the winner of the inaugural Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Justice (DEIJ) and Community Service Recognition Award in the School of Aquatic and Fishery Science (SAFS). Staci was recognized for, among other things, the leading role she has taken in organizing professional and social events that promote diversity, equity, and inclusion, in particular leading the very successful SAFS seminar course “Cultivating Inclusive Conservation Practices”. Congratulations to Staci!!

 

The Washington Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit held its Annual Graduate Student Symposium on Wednesday 10/28. The QCons lab had a great showing. Amanda Warlick won the 2020 Pauley Award for best student presentation at the symposium, while Abby Bratt won the 2019-2020 John Pierce Outstanding Graduate Student Award. Congratulations Amanda and Abby!

A new paper led by QCons lab member Mark Sorel was published October 19 in the Journal of Applied Ecology. We used data augmentation to understand how sea lion-associated mortality differentially impacts populations of endangered Chinook salmon in the Columbia River. Read the full UW news release here. Co-authors are Richard Zabel and A. Michelle Wargo Rub of NOAA Fisheries Northwest Fisheries Science Center and Devin Johnson of NOAA Fisheries Alaska Fisheries Science Center. The research was funded by the National Marine Fisheries Service West Coast Protected Resource Division.

Big QCons Lab thanks to Dan DiNicola – Communications Specialist at the School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences, for putting together this great feature on SAFS research in Washington. Three QCons projects are featured: Chinook salmon in the Wenatchee River, Streaked Horned Larks in South Sound, and Pigeon Guillemot in Puget Sound.

A new book, “Structured Decision Making: Case Studies in Natural Resource Management,” edited by Michael C Runge, Sarah J Converse, James E Lyons, and David R Smith, was published by Johns Hopkins Press in May 2020. The book was recently featured on news pages by the School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences and the School of Environmental and Forest Sciences at UW. You can also check the book out on JHU Press here, or read our JHU blog post about it here.

Brielle Kwarta officially joined the Converse Lab at the beginning of summer 2020. Brielle has been at UW for the past academic year as a member of the incoming group of QERM graduate students. Brielle will be coadvised by Sarah and Dr. Julian Olden, and will be working on how we can make better use of monitoring data to combat invasive species. Read more about Brielle here.

This week we welcomed new QCons Lab post-doc Lisanne Petracca. Lisanne will be working with Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife to develop a spatially explicit integrated population model for Washington’s wolves. You can read more about Lisanne on the QCons Lab Members page here or visit her personal website here.

We anticipate hiring a postdoc to develop population modeling tools to support the periodic status review of gray wolves in the state of Washington. The position will be based at the University of Washington in Seattle, supervised by Drs. Sarah Converse and Beth Gardner. Application deadline is February 15, 2020 or until filled. Please reference details here: Wolves Postdoc Announcement