Ari Berrios
she/her

Mentor: Beth Bastiaans at SUNY Oneonta

I grew up in Burlington, NC and pursued a degree in biology at Davidson College thanks to the Questbridge Match Scholarship. I love research and hope to pursue my PhD in the coming years. I enjoy crocheting, painting, and spending time with loved ones. I have a three-legged cat named Soup!

 

Audrey Blanchard
she/her

Mentors: Evan Grant and Elise Edwards at USGS/UMass Amherst

I've spent the last year at the USGS S.O. Conte Anadromous Fish Research Center in Turner's Falls, MA and with Bridgewater State University, and my project this year involved two population size estimator models in R to determine how we can use SPARCnet count data as accurately as we can use our capture-mark-recapture data. My project actually ended up finding a huge discrepancy between the models used with their respective data types, which doesn't sound great... but is actually a huge step forward in improving population models! I love all things ecology and wildlife, and outside of the lab I enjoy all sorts of crafting- crocheting, knitting, painting, jewelry-making, and this year I got into scrapbooking! This year has been a rollercoaster but one I would do all over again if I could 🙂

Sophie Cox
she/her

Mentors: Dave Miller and Carli Dinsmore at Penn State University

I grew up in upstate South Carolina, where I spent much of my childhood surrounded by communities of birders, entomologists, and other naturalists. I graduated from Duke University and then spent a year working with David Miller and Carli Dinsmore at Penn State. Through the SPARCnet RaMP program, I studied eastern red-backed salamander seasonal activity patterns across different climate conditions using iNaturalist data, which was particularly rewarding because my own fascination with the natural world has been so strongly shaped by citizen scientists. Starting this fall I will be a PhD student at the University of South Carolina, where I will study moth ecology.

Lan Do
she/her

Mentor: Eric Gangloff at Ohio Wesleyan University

I'm from Marysville, OH and I was inspired to work with animals by Dolphin Tale. I'm a figure skater and I love traveling. My favorite food is chicken diavolo pasta.

Anna Green
she/her

Mentor: Brandon Hedrick at Cornell University

I was in the Hedrick Lab at Cornell University studying how eastern red-backed salamanders navigate between high- and low-quality habitat. My research used spatial capture-recapture to understand movement patterns—especially in the context of climate change. We found evidence for a “competitive refuge hypothesis”: sparsely populated outer array habitat requires high fitness to access, but offers escape from the dense inner array's competition. This fall, I’m starting my PhD at the University of Montreal, where I’ll go back to my scientific origin in conservation genomics and transcriptomics of white-faced capuchin monkeys.

Shelby Hagar
she/her

Mentor: Louise Mead at Michigan State University

I am from Jackson, Michigan, and I pursued my bachelor's degree in Environmental Biology/Zoology at Michigan State University. I have always had a passion for wildlife and being outdoors and you can always catch me getting distracted identifying some plant or animal. I love to read and spend most of my free time with my families and my two cats; Bitty and Indy.

Jaden Kang

Mentors: Kristine Grayson (University of Richmond) and Stephanie Coster (Randolph Macon College)

I spent most of my life in Asheville, NC and studied biology nearby at Western Carolina University. In my downtime, I like to climb, listen to music, and read a good book. This past year, I enjoyed working with salamanders, collaborating, and developing my research interests.

Julianna Rakowski
she/her

Mentors: Kristine Grayson (University of Richmond) and Stephanie Coster (Randolph Macon College)

I earned my bachelors degree in biology from University of Wisconsin-La Crosse and started my journey in conservation in the Midwest. I have been exploring different careers in environmental science and had a blast (re)learning genetic laboratory techniques through SPARCnet RaMP. I look forward to wherever my next career step takes me.

 

Kristie Semanchik
she/her

Mentor: Sean Sterrett at Monmouth University

I have wrapped up my year in SPARCnet studying movement patterns in Eastern red-backed salamanders using PIT Telemetry. I was often in the field scanning the forest floor through my systematic survey approach where I got over 500 detections across 58 PIT tagged salamanders! For the next two years you can find me by the ocean -- I will be attending graduate school at Rutgers University for my M.S. in Oceanography where I will be researching oyster reefs in living shorelines as a method for coastal resiliency.

 

Shelby Shartzer
they/them she/her

Mentors: David McLeod and Kadrin Anderson at Mary Baldwin University

I’m a proud Kentuckian and I’ve spent the last 2 years pursuing a degree in ecology from Sterling College, a small work college in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont. I’m an inherently creative person and enjoy many hobbies outside of work such as pottery, knitting, sewing, gardening and much more. I’ll be joined in my year of study by my cat Olive who is the most chatty cat I’ve ever met!