The Folk of UVic Ecology
We span multiple departments and include faculty, postdocs, graduate and undergraduate students. Featured here are some current graduate students and post-docs working in ecology-related fields at UVic. This is not an exhaustive list as we rely upon students to submit profiles. We apologize if you aren't featured here, but would like to be. Let us know if that is the case - send us a short bio and a photo and we will get it up ASAP.
Check here for current professors and instructors also part of UVic Ecology.
Check here for current professors and instructors also part of UVic Ecology.
Department of Biology
Lia Chalifour is a PhD candidate in the Baum Lab studying the importance of habitat in the Fraser River estuary to fish communities. She is focusing on juvenile Chinook salmon, who use some of the estuarine habitat on their way out to the Salish Sea, and who's populations have been declining for decades. Lia is co-supervised by Dr. Tara Martin at UBC, and works in partnership with the Raincoast Conservation Foundation to address management actions that can restore salmon populations in the Lower Fraser. You can find out more about Lia's research and interests here.
|
Danielle Claar is a PhD student in the Baum Lab. Danielle's research focuses on the drivers of coral reef resilience in the context of increasing local and global stressors. For her research, she integrates field surveys, genetic analyses, and large-scale spatial datasets in order to disentangle environmental and human drivers in reef ecosystems. Currently, she is investigating the interaction between environmental stressors and diversity of coral symbionts (Symbiodinium) on Kiritimati Atoll. |
Therese Frauendorf is a Ph.D. student in Rana El-Sabaawi's lab. Therese's research quantifies how climate change driven alteration in stream flow affects ecosystem structure and function in tropical streams. She is also interested in how nutrient recycling rates of guppy fish vary between their native and introduced stream habitat, and if the interaction of species introduction and climate change influence the stoichiometry of nitrogen and phosphorus in streams. Visit Therese’s website to learn more about her research.
|
Cameron Freshwater is an MSc Student in the Juanes Lab. His research focuses on variation in Pacific salmon recruitment remains poorly understood, but may be closely linked to early marine mortality. I am interested in how juvenile survivorship in a marine environment varies spatially across a latitudinal gradient. I am also studying how changes in climate and prey availability may impact juvenile growth immediately after ocean entry. |
Laura Kehoe is a post-doc in the Baum Lab and Martin Conservation Decisions Lab. Laura is motivated by providing solutions to conservation problems. To do this she develops and applies approaches grounded in spatial statistics, spatial ecology, and conservation decision science. She is currently working with key stakeholders, experts, and organizations to identify the most effective and least costly management actions required to abate the key threats to the Fraser River Estuary. Laura is also the founder of 400trees.org - a project that allows individuals to replant their share of global deforestation. Contact: laurajkehoe 'at' gmail.com
|
Kristina Tietjen is a seasoned member of the Baum Lab Kiritimati (Christmas) Island scientific dive team having conducted seven expeditions to the atoll since the summer of 2014. Since the beginning of 2016 she worked as the Kiritimati Island Project Manager developing the coral database, processing samples from Kiritimati trips, and planning trips. This fall she is starting her Masters with Dr. Julia Baum focusing on the coral recruitment on Kiritimati Island following the devastating El Niño. She is also continuing her role as the project manager and will be planning next summer's trip back to Kiritimati Island.
|
School of Environmental Studies
Tammy Davies is a conservation scientist and Postdoctoral Fellow with Natalie Ban in Environmental Studies. Tammy's main research interest focuses on how an interdisciplinary approach can be used to develop locally-appropriate and sustainable management of natural resources. Originally with a background in Biology, Tammy's work has increasingly integrated the social sciences, and she has been involved with a variety of International conservation projects from India to Madagascar. Tammy's current work is a collaborative, global meta-analysis that aims to identify key factors that contribute to successful social and ecological outcomes in large Marine Protected Areas.
|
Becky Miller is a PhD student in the Starzomski Lab. She has joined the Hakai Institute's 100 Islands Project, looking at variations in plant communities on islands, including long-term human impacts on island biodiversity. |
Nancy Shackelford is a community ecologist in the Starzomski Lab working in the very wet hypermaritime zone of British Columbia. Her focus is on ecosystem resilience - in its many definitions and forms - and how it can be manipulated or impacted by human activity. She is interested both in the broad theoretical questions surrounding ecosystem management and the on-the-ground applications of ecological science. |
Frances Stewart is a PhD candidate in the School of Environmental Studies. Her thesis involves studying re-introduction genetics and connectivity of fisher (Pekania pennanti) across the province of Alberta, and assessing individual movement and behaviour in a mixed-use landscape - Alberta's Cooking Lake Moraine. In other words, she spends a lot of time looking through wildlife camera photos, conducting laboratory population genetics work and running landscape genetics models, live-trapping fisher, and smearing smelly lure onto trees. |
Owen Fitzpatrick is an MSc Student in the Starzomski Lab. As part of the Hakai Institute's 100 Islands' project, he will be focusing on the effects of marine-derived subsidies and island biogeography variables on plant communities of the Central Coast. Owen is interested in restoration, ecology, botany, and place-based research. |
Sara Wickham is an MSc Student in the Starzomski Lab. She is part of the Hakai Institute's 100 Islands' project, providing the marine-derived nutrients angle by measuring hundreds of kg of algae and seagrasses that wash up onshore of various islands along the Central Coast. Her thesis looks at factors driving wrack accumulation on islands and the ecological implications of such a massive subsidy. Here's some more detail on that.
|
Sandra Frey is a MSc Student with Jason Fisher and John Volpe studying carnivore community ecology. Her research focuses on how landscape development and human footprint alters species' activity patterns and interactions in the Rocky Mountains of Alberta. |
Jemma Green is a MSc Student in the Higgs Lab and is co-supervised by Dr. Purnima Govindarajulu (BC Ministry of Environment). Jemma is interested in urban wildlife ecology and conservation. Her research investigates species-habitat relationships of amphibians in natural and constructed environments in developed landscapes on southern Vancouver Island.
|
Department of Geography
Megan Adams is a PhD student with the Raincoast Conservation Foundation and Dr. Chris Darimont's Applied Conservation Sciences lab in the Department of Geography. Working with the Wuikinuxv Nation, she is interested in coupled bear-salmon-human systems, specifically habitat and resource connectivity for coastal grizzly bears. |
As a postdoctoral fellow in the Darimont Lab, Heather Bryan is fascinated with the physiological mechanisms by which wildlife responds to environmental change. Accordingly, Heather uses indicators of wildlife health, such as hormones and parasites, to elucidate the natural and anthropogenic mechanisms driving population-level change. Heather is intrigued by novel approaches for studying wildlife with minimal disturbance, and am always keen to apply new techniques. Much of Heather’s work has been motivated and informed by carnivore-salmon systems on Canada’s west coast. Heather is grateful for the tremendous mentors, colleagues and friends in field and academic settings who contribute to all aspects of this work, particularly our labs’ continued partnerships with coastal communities. Heather thanks the Hakai Network (Tula Foundation) for funding my current position and the Raincoast Conservation Foundation for providing essential research support.
|
Katie Davidson is an MSc student in the Darimont Lab. Working on the Hakai Institute's 100 Islands Project, she is investigating how marine nutrient subsidies, in the form of wrack accumulation, influence mammal ecology on islands of the Central Coast. In particular, she is interested in how small mammals are affected by marine subsidies. |
Lauren Eckert is a conservation ecologist, adventure enthusiast, and Ph.D candidate. An undergraduate career with ecological field experiences around the globe and exposure to the wisdom of local and indigenous communities motivated Lauren to delve into interdisciplinary conservation in ethnoecology, which values local and traditional knowledge systems alongside empirical scientific studies for successful and inclusive conservation. Lauren completed her M.Sc. working collaboratively with Coastal First Nations (Heilstuk, Kitasoo/Xai'xais, Wuikinuxv, and Nuxalk) to bolster local marine conservation strategies and understand the changes to groundfish populations over the last half century in the Great Bear Rainforest and Sea of British Columbia, Canada (under Dr. Natalie Ban). In 2017, Lauren began her Ph.D. candidacy in the Applied Conservation Science Lab under the supervision of Dr. Chris Darimont. She aims to continue pursuing conservation work at the intersection natural and social sciences at the University of Victoria and on the Central Coast of BC. Check out Lauren's blog.
|