Graduate Students

Andres Novaro with clupeo fox in Patagonian steppe of southern Argentina.

Current Graduate Students:

Sonia Canavelli (Ph.D.)  Thesis topic -- Integrating avian landscape ecology and human dimensions for comprehensive management of parakeet damage to crops  (Research site: northern Argentina)

Santiago Espinosa (Ph.D.)  Thesis topic -- Indigenous people and jaguar conservation: Effects of road development and bushmeat extraction  (Research site: Yasuní National Park, Ecuador). recent news articles about santiago’s work. wcs article . national geographic news. wcs slide show.

Jason Martin (Ph.D.)  Thesis topic --  Large-scale experimental study of barn owl and rodent dynamics in the Everglades agricultural landscape (Research site:  Everglades Agricultural Area, Florida)

Eduardo Silva (Ph.D.) Thesis topic – Conservationof pudu deer in the coastal forest of Chile. Co-chair of committee with Dr. Katie Sieving.

Margo Stoddard (Ph.D.)  Thesis topic -- Impact of tropical forest management on wildlife at different scales (Research site: Bolivia)

Dan Thornton (Ph.D.)   Thesis topic -- Reponse of neotropical mammals to habitat fragmentation (Research site: Peten, Guatemala). Co-chair of committee with Dr. Mel Sunquist.

Galo Zapata Rios (Ph.D.) - Responses of mammalian carnivores to human disturbance in the northern Ecuadorian Andes.

Graduated Students:

Alejandro Pietrek (M.S.) 

2009. Thesis. Assessment of the importance of plantations for the Araucaria Tit Spinetail (leptasthenura setaria) in Argentina. MS. Current position: Ph.D. student, Duke University.

Mariano Rodriguez Cabal

  2008.  Thesis. Habitat assessment for a threatened keystone marsupial in temperate forest of South America (Research site: Andean forest of southern Argentina). MS.  Current position: Ph.D. student, University of Tennessee.

Alex Pries

2006. Thesis. Hurricane impacts on coastal dunes and spatial distribution of Santa Rosa Beach Mice (Peromyscus polionotus leucocephalus) in dune habitats.  MS.  Current position:  Regional Conservation Biologist, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission

Brittany Bird

    2002. Thesis.  Wildlife Ecology and Conservation. Effects of predation risk and landscape structure on the foraging behavior of the Santa Rosa beach mouse (Peromyscus polionotus leucocephalus): Conservation management implications. M. S. Current position:  Great Lakes Regional Wildlife Biologist, Wildlife Habitat Council.

Kirsten Leong

    2001. Thesis. The reproductive context of low-frequency vocalizations in the African elephant (Loxodonta africana) in captivity. M.S. – University of Florida, Ph.D. -- Cornell University.  

Marcela Machicote
    2001. Thesis. Facilitation of burrowing owls by a colonial rodent: ecosystem engineering and heterospecific communication. M.S.

Susan Walker
    2000.  Thesis. Effects of landscape structure on the distribution of mountain vizcachas (Lagidium viscacia). Ph.D. Current position:  Research Ecologist, Centro de Ecología Aplicada del Neuquén and Co-director, Patagonian and Southern Andean Steppe Program, Wildlife Conservation Society, Argentina;

Diego Villarreal
    1999. Thesis. Effects of herbivory by the plains vizcacha (Lagostomus maximus) on vegetation of semiarid scrub of central Argentina. M.S. Current position: Associate Professor, Faculty of Natural and Exact Sciences, National University of La Pampa, Argentina.

Jose Hierro
    1999. Thesis. Cold spots/hot spots: facilitation and interference of shrubs by a native herbivore in a semiarid ecosystem. M.S. – University of Florida, Ph.D. – University of Montana, Current position: Assistant Professor and CONICET researcher, Faculty of Natural and Exact Sciences, National University of La Pampa, Argentina.

Andres Novaro
    1997. Thesis. Source-sink dynamics induced by hunting: a case study of clupeo foxes on rangelands in Patagonia, Argentina. Ph.D. Current position: Staff Researcher, Argentine Research Council (CONICET); Conservation Zoologist and Co-director, Patagonian and Southern Andean Steppe Program, Wildlife Conservation Society, Argentina.

Martin Funes
    1996. Thesis. The European rabbit: patterns of spread and resource availability along watersheds in Northern Patagonia, Argentina. M.S. Current position: Research Biologist, Patagonian and Southern Andean Steppe Program, Wildlife Conservation Society, Argentina.

Joe Meisel
    1995. Thesis: The influence of landscape structure on animal communities: landscape spatial patterns and avian body mass aggregations. M.S. – University of Florida, Ph.D. – University of Wisconsin, Current position: President, Ceiba Foundation for Tropical Conservation.