I am an avian ecologist working at the intersection of community ecology, landscape ecology, population biology, comparative zoology, and conservation biology. I am particularly interested in questions that advance basic ecological theory and provide applied results for conservation practitioners managing biodiversity. Most of my work has focused on birds as model organisms, with over 15 years of field experience studying birds throughout the Western Hemisphere. I am a strong believer in the continued importance of field data collection, especially in understudied biological hotspots.
Questions of interest include:
- How elevational and agricultural land use gradients interact to explain community assembly on tropical mountains.
- How gradients in light microenvironments and microclimate contribute to disturbance sensitivity for birds.
- How the avian visual system contributes to the ecology and evolution of birds across the Avian Tree of Life.
- The role of urbanization in modulating avian demography and space use.
- Wildfire and its effects on forest bird communities.
- Management strategies for promoting avian biodiversity in tropical countrysides.
- Approaches for working as an “Embedded Researcher” in rural communities
I completed my PhD at the University of Florida and Florida Museum of Natural History (USA), during which time I spent two years living in rural campesino communities in the Andes of northern Peru, studying the disassembly of cloud forest bird communities along agricultural and elevational land use gradients. As a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Bern, I mentor students in topics related to applied population ecology and am developing a research program regarding the interaction of climate and land use on avian populations in the Alps and Andes.
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