Thank you for visiting my website. I am currently in the second year of my PhD program, working with Dr. Jack Stanford at the Flathead Lake Biological Station. I first became interested in stream ecology during a high school Ecology class where we took field trips and studied the habitat, water chemistry and biota of North Idaho Streams. My interest further peaked while attending summer field courses at the University of Montana’s Flathead Lake Biological Station. After receiving my Bachelor’s degree, I worked as a research assistant for Dr. Jack Stanford’s Salmonid Rivers Observatory Network project in the Kitlope Heritage Preserve, British Columbia. I enrolled in a Masters degree program at Idaho State University in 2005 and completed my degree with Dr. Colden Baxter in the spring of 2008.
My masters research focused on the effects of wildfire on linked stream-riparian food webs in the Big Creek watershed, located in the Frank Church Wilderness of central Idaho. This work was part of a collaborative project between Dr. Baxter and the late Dr. Jeff Braatne (a riparian ecologist from the University of Idaho)and was supported by the DeVlieg Foundation, the Taylor Ranch Wilderness Field Station, and ISU. I am currently conducting my dissertation research in western Alaska on the Yukon Delta Wildlife refuge in partnership with the US Fish and Wildlife Service. I am investigating the role beaver habitat modification plays in altering the production of juvenile salmonids in a large floodplain river. I anticipate completing an additional two seasons of field work with a graduation date of 2012.
