Employment opportunities

My research group and employment opportunities

Current (and recent) graduate students:

Amanda Hern (MS) worked on conservation and management of rare freshwater fishes in Maryland watersheds. She is working with the Maryland Biological Stream Survey dataset and GIS data to develop landscape/habitat relationships with the selected fishes and project future trends and conservation actions given projected human population growth in the state. Amanda is now working as a consultant. FINISHED in SPRING 2006 Thesis - The current status and future prospects of selected rare fish species in Maryland
Elissa Schuett (MS) explored the effects of stream confluences on aquatic invertebrate biodiversity. Are confluence assemblages simply the sum of the upstream contributors, or do changes in local geomorphology substantially affect composition? Elissa is currently a field crew leader at the Toolik Lake LTER working out of Woods Hole. FINISHED in SPRING 2007 Thesis - Effects of stream confluences on benthic macroinvertebrate assemblages in first- through third-order streams in the Savage River watershed, Garrett County, Maryland
Gabe Strain (MS) worked with herpetofauna (amphibians and reptiles). His objective was to identify, develop, and test for better and more efficient monitoring for assessing watershed condition. Herps can be important indicators of ecosystem condition, but are difficult to inventory without large effort. We are hoping his research will identify methods that are easy to implement, but do a good job of describing the herp community. Gabe is currently in the PhD program at West Virginia University. FINISHED in FALL 2007 Thesis - A comparison of techniques to sample amphibian assemblages in highland streams of Maryland.
Cara Campbell (PhD) is working with the National Park Service and the USGS on developing methods for better prediction and ultimate discovery of populations of the endangered dwarf wedgemussel. Along the way she is also examining community attributes of freshwater mussels ccampbell@usgs.gov
Ryan Utz (PhD) is working (along with Erik Powers) on an EPA STAR funded project focused on identifying threshold events that shift stream ecosystems from desired into degraded states. We ultimately hope to develop stream vulnerability maps to the various stressors acting on Maryland streams. rutz@al.umces.edu

Employment opportunities in my research group:

I am not taking on additional students at this time. However, feel free to contact me if interested in working in my research group because you never know when a new opportunity may arise.