I am a quantitative ecologist interested in disease dynamics, community and population ecology, and species conservation.
To mimic natural hierarchical systems, I develop hierarchical Bayesian models, and I exploit data collected over space and time to separate ecological and observational processes to answer ecological questions. My research program focuses on unifying ecological and evolutionary theory to address fundamental questions in disease ecology using field, experimental, and quantitative approaches. |
Research program
Population & Community ecologyBroadly, I am interested in understanding how disturbance impacts population dynamics and community composition.
One type of disturbance are disease outbreaks. In this case, we might expect that different species would respond differently to disease infection, where differences are reflected in population dynamics; and that there may be some commonalities across species-responses at the community level. Read more:
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Advanced quantitative approachesBroadly, I am interested in understanding how imperfect host detection influences parameter estimation and inference, while taking advantage of commonly collected data (i.e., data from populations where individuals are not individually marked).
I develop novel Bayesian hierarchical models using detection/non-detection or count data to accurately and precisely estimate parameters that are comparable to estimates generated from data collected by marking individuals, which can be costly and labor-intensive. Read more:
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Disease ecology
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