My thesis work included investigations of the landscape dynamics of sylvatic plague in black-tailed prairie dogs throughout the Great Plains. In particular we examined the temporal and spatial patterns of the spread of plague among prairie dog colonies and mechanisms that may be driving these patterns.

I am particularly interested in the landscape level dynamics of vector-borne zoonotic diseases in social animals and how diseases move through populations, especially when multiple hosts and/or vectors are players in a disease cycle. I am also interested in the use of GIS and spatial modeling as tools to investigate these dynamics.

My current research involves disease modeling at the landscape level. I propose to develop a theoretical model that integrates the mathematics of complexity, nonlinear systems, and statistical analysis, and employs the promising new approach of cellular automata to investigate complex interactive systems. The methodology will focus on climate, ecological, and satellite variables, as well as parameters defining infection and population dynamics, imbedded in a Geographic Information System to describe and predict the spatial and temporal characteristics of disease propagation.

My most recent research focused on prairie dog management in the Montana Fort Belknap Reservation and the South Dakota Badlands National Park. This research examined the dynamics of sylvatic plague in black-tailed prairie dogs and the integration of the cellular automata modeling framework.

I am interested in understanding population trajectories and dynamics in the realm of conservation biology. The two main research aspects I plan to explore are (1) the mechanisms that drive population dynamics and (2) the adaptation of various tools from the fields of genetics and microbiology to improve our ability to evaluate population trends and structures.

During the past 2 summers, Rebecca Wahl, a PhD student from the wildlife program, and I have led a mark-recapture project of Boreal Toads at Lost Trail National Wildlife Refuge in northwestern MT. The aim of this project is to gain an understanding of both the population dynamics and the reproductive ecology of this sensitive species by being able to estimate population trends and track year-to-year breeding patterns and success.