Sabrina Aeluro

I'm an animal lover who decided to go back to school to become a science-based, professional-strength cat lady. I originally thought I would become a veterinarian, but got hooked on research. I'm interested in free-roaming cat behavior in urban landscapes and conducting impact assessments of spay/neuter programs - all with the aim of learning the most effective ways of reducing populations of free-roaming cats using cat-friendly methods. I love being part of the growing movement to build collaborations between "cat people" and "wildlife people," and I also study the human dimensions of cat management and how feral cat advocacy groups operate. For undergrad, I attended the University of Washington and earned a Bachelor's degree in Biology and an Applied Animal Behavior Certificate. I'm now working on my Master's degree in the Predatory Ecology Lab, where my project is designing and validating Kitizen Science [link: http://kitizenscience.org], a citizen science approach to using photographic mark-recapture to monitor free-roaming cat populations in partnership with spay/neuter organizations. I'm also enrolled in a Graduate Certificate in One Health and conducting a study on the potential use of outdoor cats as sentinels in environmental toxicology.


Website: https://www.aeluro.com

Apryle Craig

I earned a BS in BioEngineering from the University of Pittsburgh and masters in Ecology at Colorado State University.  I am interested in trophic cascades. During my master's research, I worked with Dr. Liba Pejchar to investigate the impacts of elk browsing and riparian willow restoration on bird communities in Rocky Mountain National Park. Throughout my masters, I also worked at the national park supervising data collection for the park's Elk and Vegetation Management Plan, overseeing vegetation monitoring, elk exclosures, and elk counts. My PhD research with Dr. Aaron Wirsing is exploring possible trophic cascades that may be occurring with the recolonization of grey wolves in north central Washington. I am interested in learning how this coursing predator may influence deer foraging behavior, diet composition, and plant browse which may lead to changes in vegetation structure or composition. I am passionate about citizen science, environmental education, and science communication.

Website:  http://apryledcraig.wordpress.com/ 

Michael Havrda

My goal is to conduct wildlife research that not only advances our understanding of wildlife species and their ecological roles but also results in the development of scientific and practical methods of management and conservation. I am particularly interested in noninvasive carnivore research and spent the last three years studying wolverines for the North Cascades Wolverine Study and Conservation Northwest. While I was chasing wolverines around in the mountains, I earned a BS in Wildlife Conservation from the University of Washington’s School of Environmental and Forest Sciences (SEFS) in 2014. In 2015, I received a recruitment fellowship to return to SEFS as a master’s student in the Predator Ecology Lab, where I am studying carnivore habitat use, relative activity, species composition, and diet along the urban-to-wildland gradient of western Washington. My research will help illuminate how wildlife species exist along a gradient of human influence and inform future land-use and development planning.

Shannon Kachel

I am a Ph.D. Student and NSF Graduate Research Fellow studying the ecology of snow leopards, wolves, ibex and argali in the Pamir and Tien Shan Mountains of Central Asia. The direct and indirect interactions among the carnivores and ungulates in this ecosystem have serious implications that can inform better hunting and husbandry practices to benefit local communities and wildlife alike. Using a combination of non-invasive genetics, camera trapping, GPS telemetry, and direct observation, I will create spatially explicit estimates of carnivore and ungulate demographic and behavioral parameters against which I will be able to compare habitat selection, reproductive success, survival, and other questions of interest.

I graduated with a B.S. in Wildlife Science from UW in 2008, and I completed my M.S. in Wildlife Ecology at the University of Delaware in 2014. Prior to grad school, I worked for 4 years as a Wolf Recovery Biologist for the Nez Perce Tribe in Idaho. My research interests include development of non-invasive techniques for investigating rare and elusive species, hierarchical modeling in ecology, carnivore spatial ecology, behavioral ecology, and international conservation.

Laurel Peelle

I am a Ph.D student investigating the characteristics of foraging habitat for the state-endangered Canada lynx, the drivers of survival for snowshoe hares (the main prey of lynx), and how predator type and prey characteristics relate to kill-site habitat in Washington state's southern boreal forests. The methods I used to collect data over my several years in the field included using forensics to determine the responsible predator at kill sites, live-trapping hares, telemetry monitoring, camera trapping, forest measurements, pellet surveys, and snow tracking.

I received my M.S. at UW examining the effectiveness of a saliva-swabbing technique at wildlife kill sites with minimal prey remains. Prior to graduate school, I obtained my Bachelor's from UCLA, studied abroad in Tasmania, worked as a field technician, and spent a few years as a biologist for an environmental consulting firm, all of which gave me experience with many taxonomic groups. Although I have numerous research interests, I am most interested in predator-prey interactions, sensitive species, and how behavioral ecology can inform conservation and management decisions. I am also passionate about teaching, outreach, and encouraging people of all backgrounds to not be intimidated by ecology or science in general.

Clint Robins

I am a second year Masters and Ph.D. student and NSF Graduate Research Fellow studying how the transition from wildland to urban environments shapes cougar hunting behavior.  In Washington, cougars occupy landscapes adjacent to residential development.  The ecology and behavior of cougars is shaped in part by human population size, distribution, and activity.  Consequently, successful management and conservation of these species requires an accurate understanding of how these factors influence cougar space use, foraging ecology, and interactions with people.  The goal of my research is to understand how landscape features, particularly patch size, patch shape, and understory characteristics, influence where cougars choose to hunt for prey, and whether tendencies change near residential areas.

My field work involves radio telemetry, GPS collaring, and kill site analysis.  Prior to graduate school, I graduated from Williams College in 2011 (highest honors) with a BA in biology and environmental studies.  After Williams, I worked as a Divemaster for St. Croix SCUBA in Hudson, WI, doubling as an assistant to instructors and as a member of a research team managing invasive Myriophyllum species in Perch Lake. In the summer of 2012, I worked as a field intern for the Northern Divide Grizzly Bear Project in Glacier National Park.  After working on the brown bear project, I spent 10 months In Liwonde National Park, Malawi, researching roan antelope population stability through a Fulbright grant.      

Lauren Satterfield

I​ am a PhD student studying the effects of wolf recolonization on mountain lion ecology and resource selection in Washington State under Drs. Aaron Wirsing, Brian Kertson, and Thomas Newsome. 

While completing a bachelor’s degree in Mathematics from Mount Holyoke College, I was motivated to travel and spent a semester abroad focused on Tibetan and Himalayan Studies with the School for International Training in India and Nepal. My work there included a survey of snow leopard-pastoralist conflict mitigation measures in Hemis National Park and the surrounding areas of Ladakh, India. I advanced my field skills as a technician on a mountain lion prey study in Bighorn Canyon National Recreation Area, which spans Montana and Wyoming, before entering graduate school. During my master's at the University of Georgia, I worked with Drs. John Carroll and Clint Moore to study occupancy, temporal partitioning, and bait preferences of the carnivore community in the Tuli block of eastern Botswana using camera traps. While in Botswana, I acted as a teaching assistant for an undergraduate study abroad course. Students learned about topics and challenges common to international conservation while assisting with leopard and lion research led by the Northern Tuli Predator Project. After graduation, I moved to Cyprus on a Fulbright scholarship working with local biologists to study cave ecology and promote cave conservation on the island. My research interests focus on using a combination of advanced analytical methods and fieldwork to study predator ecology, human-wildlife conflict, and ecosystem health, both domestically and internationally.

To find out more about Lauren's research, please visit https://predatorpreyproject.weebly.com/.

Carolyn Shores

I am a Ph.D. student and NSF Graduate Research Fellow in the Predator Ecology Lab. My broad research interests are interspecific competition, predator-prey interactions, and trophic cascades ecology. 

My Ph.D. research is on the ecosystem impacts of wolves in multi-use landscapes.  My dissertation is focused on how wolves change coyote populations, and how this in turn changes the rate of coyote predation on mule deer fawns.  I employ a combination of non-invasive scat and track surveys, GPS collaring, radio telemetry and kill site analysis in my field work. Mule deer are declining throughout the American west due to unknown causes, and my research will inform mule deer conservation and management, as well as our understanding of the impacts of predators in multi-use landscapes.  

My field experience includes work on trophic cascades ecology in Canada, small mammal conservation in the North Cascade Mountains, Canada lynx remote camera and live trapping in Colorado and Washington, and wolf ecology in Italy. 

Jeff Smith

I am a fourth year PhD student co-advised by Aaron Wirsing and Dee Boersma in the Department of Biology. I got my BS from the University of Washington in 2006 and spent the next four years working for the Magellanic Penguin Project both in Seattle and at the field site at Punta Tombo, Argentina. I then spent a year in Kenya working for Kay Holekamp and the Spotted Hyena Project at their field site in the Masai Mara. The central focus of my dissertation research is looking at variation in aggressive behaviors between individual penguins. I am interested in how differences in aggression between individuals affect mating patterns and fitness. I am also interested in predation patterns on both adult penguins as well as on penguin nests. My work is a mixture of behavioral ecology, landscape ecology, and conservation.


Website: https://ecosystemsentinels.org/jeff-smith/​

Lily van Eeden

I’m a PhD student from The University of Sydney, Australia, and I’m visiting the UW Predator Ecology Lab for ten months as a Fulbright Scholar to learn from North American experiences in predator management. In Australia, my research focuses on the largest terrestrial mammalian predator in Australian ecosystems – the dingo. Dingoes are controlled across the continent using mostly lethal methods to prevent attacks on livestock, and I’m interested in the human dimensions that shape this management. My research to date has focused on public awareness and acceptance of management practices as well as surveys of farmers to determine what influences how they protect their livestock. The focus of Australia’s management is baiting using 1080 poison, a practice that has been illegal in the USA since 1972, so I’m interested in understanding how a balance is met between livestock production and carnivore conservation in the USA.

​My interest in the human dimensions of wildlife management was inspired by around eight years’ experience working as an ecologist, mostly in Australia but also in the USA, China, and the UK. Working in different cultural settings brought me to realise the importance of understanding what shapes human actions in implementing successful environmental management. I then completed an interdisciplinary MSc in biodiversity conservation at the University of Oxford in 2015 before starting my PhD in Sydney.

​Website: lilyvaneeden.wordpress.com

Undergraduate Assistants

These dedicated assistants work on everything from field data collection to data entry and more!