CURRENT MEMBERS OF THE UCONN ORNITHOLOGY GROUP

Dan Britton is a student in the EEB BS/MS program.

Patrick Bukowski is an EEB undergraduate who has been helping with invertebrate identification for our saltmarsh bird studies.

Chris Elphick is a faculty member in the EEB department.

Chris Field is a student in the EEB BS/MS program. He is currently working on the development of Important Bird Area conservation plans for Audubon-Connecticut.

Jason Hill is an EEB Master’s student studying the movement behavior and survival of saltmarsh sharp-tailed sparrows.

Erin King is a former Master’s student who continues to help out with our saltmarsh bird study from time to time. She is also working on the development of Important Bird Area conservation plans for Audubon-Connecticut.

Nancy LaFleur recently completed her PhD on the interactions between European starlings and invasive plants. She is currently writing up her dissertation for publication.

Shannon Murray is an EEB undergraduate working on avian functional morphology.

Kara Rogers is a student in the EEB BS/MS program. She is particularly interested in issues relating to wildlife disease.

Margaret Rubega is a faculty member in the EEB department.

Trina Schneider is an EEB PhD student studying breeding site selection behavior in saltmarsh sharp-tailed sparrows.

Diego Sustaita is an EEB PhD student with an interest in the functional morphology of prey capture in raptors.

Kira Sullivan-Wiley is an EEB undergraduate working on the functional morphology of prey capture in bee-eaters.

Oriane Taft is a postdoctoral researcher working on a major review of waterbird occurrence in agricultural habitats. Although affiliated with our research group she is currently based at Oregon State University.

Gregor Yanega is an EEB PhD student studying the functional morphology of insectivory in hummingbirds.

PAST LAB MEMBERS

Martha Ellis was an EEB major who conducted independent research on mute swan population dynamics and behavior in our group. She is currently having too much doing field work and looking for a PhD position.

Carina Gjerdrum ran our saltmarsh sparrow research for the first 3 years of the project. Prior to that she earned her MSc at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, where she did some very cool research on tufted puffins. She now works as a seabird biologist for the Canadian Wildlife Service in Nova Scotia.

Selena Humphries was an EEB major who conducted independent research on saltmarsh sharp-tailed sparrow nest building behavior in our group.

OTHER COLLABORATORS

Patrick Comins is Director for Bird Conservation at Audubon-Connecticut. He is responsible for prompting our group’s interest in saltmarsh sparrows.

Chris Hill is a professor at Coastal Carolina University who has been helping us to study paternity patterns in saltmarsh sparrows.

Min Huang is a PhD student in the NRME department and a waterfowl biologist with the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection. He is a collaborator on our studies of mute swan foraging biology.

Shannon Kearney is a PhD student in the Pathobiology department and a wildlife biologist with the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection. Members of our research group have helped with her research on West Nile Virus in birds.

Michael Reed is a professor at Tufts University. A long-term friend since our Reno days, Michael and Chris collaborate on a variety of topics and frequently get lost when driving places because we’re talking rather than paying attention to where we’re going.