Brittany M. Mason
Data Management Analyst
Brittany plays a pivotal role in organizing and collating diverse datasets, writing code, downloading, and performing analyses for a number of projects in the research group. Her responsibilities extend to figure design, general lab management, and collaborating with students, ensuring smooth project execution and facilitating scientific discoveries.
Jackson Barratt Heitmann
PhD Student
Jackson is a PhD student in the Department of Wildlife Ecology and Conservation. He received his Masters from College of Charleston, South Carolina, where he studied ephemeral wetlands and their value for birds. For his PhD, he is continuing to study wetlands, using a combination of data analysis and fieldwork, to understand the value and importance of various types of wetlands, ranging from natural ephemeral wetlands to highly anthropogenic constructed wetlands.
Samantha Lowe
Master's Student
Sam is a Master's Student in the School of Natural Resources and Environment. She is working on understanding and quantifying how, and why, people engage with nature through citizen science using the iNaturalist project as a case study. She also is assessing the complementarity of citizen science data such as eBird and iNaturalist with state agency data.
Levi Hoskins
PhD student
Levi is a PhD student in the School of Natural Resources and Environment and will be working on a PhD in interdisciplinary ecology. They received their bachelor's from Tulane University where they studied habitat fragmentation in the Chocó Rainforest of Ecuador. During their PhD, they will study how urban greenspaces are used by humans and migratory animals. By integrating citizen science data and fieldwork, they will study how these areas influence migration patterns and species abundance. Levi is co-supervised with Dr. Chang Zhao from the Department of Agronomy.
Mario Zuliani
Postdoctoral Associate
Mario is a postdoc in our group working across many different quantitative ecology projects. He is a recent PhD graduate from York University, where he focused on assessing resource selection and facilitative interactions of California desert animal species. Currently, he is working on modelling the abundance of submerged aquatic vegetation as well as wading bird abundance and behavior at Lake Okeechobee. His responsibilities in the group involve conducting quantitative analysis, writing associated scientific papers, and providing support for graduate students and team members.
Marina Marquis
Master's student
Marina is a Master’s Student in the Department of Wildlife Ecology and Conservation. She discovered her passion for wildlife research at the University of Florida, where she also studied wildlife ecology and conservation and is finishing her Bachelor's degree. Marina’s main research interests include the influence of anthropogenic change on wildlife behavior and community structure. Marina is using iNaturalist data to explore the effects of urbanization on pollinators and pollination.
Anna Swigris
PhD student
Anna is an interdisciplinary ecology PhD student in the School of Natural Resources and Environment. She received her Bachelor's from the Department of Wildlife Ecology and Conservation at UF in 2019 and has since spent her professional career focused on a variety of aspects of aquatic ecology. During her PhD, she will be studying the restoration ecology of freshwater systems, using principles of trophic, community, and quantitative ecology to better understand and assess restoration targets, strategies, and outcomes.
Lee Gallivan
Undergraduate Research Assistant
Lee is an undergraduate student in the Department of Wildlife Ecology and Conservation. As a research intern, her focus is on the intersection of invasion ecology and behavioral ecology. Currently, her work revolves around leveraging comparing different datasets relevant for monitoring herps in Florida.
Jiayi Song
PhD student
Jiayi is a PhD student in the School of Natural Resources and Environment. He received his master's from the University of Florida, where he studied computer engineering. For his PhD, he is working in interdisciplinary ecology, studying how Artificial Intelligence, especially Deep Learning, is used in ecosystem modelling. By integrating earth observation data and citizen science data, he will study how to model and predict biodiversity and ecosystem services in large spatial scale and high-resolution. Jiayi is co-supervised with Dr. Chang Zhao from the Department of Agronomy.
Analise Fussell
Research Technician
Analise is a research technician in our group. She oversees fieldwork operations across multiple projects, including waterbird monitoring on Lake Okeechobee, and manages fieldwork logistics. She also contributes to data analysis, extension programming, and outreach efforts.
Thomas Lilkendey
Undergraduate Research Assistant
Thomas is an undergraduate student in the Department of Wildlife Ecology and Conservation. He is a research intern with a focus on applying large iNaturalist datasets to study urban ecology and pollinator diversity. Currently, he is researching the utility of “secondary data” to understand plant-pollinator interactions in urban greenspaces.
Alumni
Muzi D. Sibiya
Postdoctoral Associate
Muzi was a postdoc in our group who worked on modelling Wild Turkey relative abundance and distribution using diverse datasets.
Nataly Miguez
Undergraduate Research Assistant
Nataly is a recent graduate of UF earning a bachelors in geography. She worked with our research group from April 2023-December 2023 and she mapped and analyzed urban greenspaces in Broward County, and their value for biodiversity and for people. Her work identifed tradeoffs and synergies between urban greenspace utility for biodiversity and for anthropogenic use.
Maureen Thompson
PhD Student, UNSW Sydney
Maureen was a PhD student at UNSW Sydney, where she did her PhD in biological sciences, with a focus on using citizen science data to understand the motivations of participants of FrogID and how these data can be used to advance ecological understanding of frogs in Australia. She graduated in late 2023 and now leads the Beaver Works Oregon Program in Central Oregon.
Amélie Tatin
Research intern, iDiv
Amélie previously worked as a research assistant in the conservation group at the iDiv research institute in Leipzig, on the biogeography of urban greenspaces using iNaturalist data. Amélie is working as a data analyst trainee in the bird and species conservation group at NABU e.V in Berlin. Her work mainly aims to identify trends in bird citizen science data, but she is also helping with various other conservation projects.