Personal Information

• B.S. (Mechanical Engineering), 1997, Pennsylvania State University
• M.S. (Environmental Science) , 2003, University of Montana
• Ph.D. (Ecology & Evolutionary Biology) , 2008, University of Tennessee
• Curriculum Vitae
• My new website at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, Appalachian Laboratory

Research Interests

I am interested in understanding current and predicting future patterns of biodiversity in the face of global environmental change. I use scenarios of climatic change, remote-sensing datasets, and various modeling techniques to predict how global change may alter terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems with the goal of managing these impacts. My research centers on two major themes: (1) combining dispersal and niche-based models to forecast the spread of invasive species and range shifts under climatic change and (2) understanding and reducing the sources of uncertainty within such projections. My work has addressed a diverse set of research questions regarding Western Australian plants, North American ants, and biological invasions in the Great Lakes. Currently I am monitoring the spread of the hemlock wooly adelgid at the northern limit of its range and using this model system to develop models to predict the spread of invasive species.