My main research interests involve the role of matrix habitats (i.e., the usually degraded or human-managed lands beyond protected areas) in mammal conservation in the Neotropics.  I am currently a postdoctoral fellow in the School of Natural Resources and Environment, where I am working with Dr. Ivette Perfecto on questions of biodiversity and its ecological function in agricultural systems in Central America.  Dr. Perfecto and her research group have studied many aspects of invertebrate and bird biodiversity in shade coffee plantations; however, there are few similar studies of the diversity and structure of mammalian assemblages in such agroforests, and even less information on the effects of mammals on agroecosystems.  I am working with her research group on a three-year investigation of bats in shade coffee plantations of Chiapas, Mexico.   My research considers both the relationship between management intensity and bat assemblage structure and the effects of bat predation on arthropod populations and levels of herbivory in agroecosystems.

I received my Ph.D. in 2003 from New York University.  For my dissertation, I studied the ecology of mantled howler monkeys (Alouatta palliata) living in a shade coffee plantation in Mombacho Volcano, Nicaragua.  This research demonstrated that shade coffee plantations can serve as core habitat for forest-adapted mammals.  From June 2003 to July 2004, I was a postdoctoral researcher for the Saint Louis Zoo, based in Bosawás Biosphere Reserve in northern Nicaragua.  I collaborated with indigenous Miskito and Mayangna residents in Bosawás to study the population status and subsistence hunting of large mammals and birds.  I am also a research scientist with Paso Pacífico, an NGO dedicated to conservation of Central America's remaining fragments of tropical dry forest.  This work has focused on monitoring the status of primate populations in forest fragments in western Nicaragua.  Although most of my time is currently spent working on bats in coffee plantations in Mexico, I'm still involved in research on other mammal taxa in Nicaragua.

I live in Ann Arbor with my husband, who is working on his Ph.D. in Cinema Studies; and my cat, who is working on getting even fatter than she already is.