Areas of Interest

• Local government policy and planning
• Community engagement and co-design
• Futuring and collective imagination
• Participatory governance

Areas of Interest

I am currently pursuing several research projects:
1) Conservation: Amphibian populations have been in sharp decline worldwide. Indeed, amphibians are facing a biodiversity crisis like no other vertebrate group – 41% of their species are classified as currently threatened; 37 species are confirmed extinct since monitoring began in the 1960s. 185 species are currently considered Critically Endangered/Possibly Extinct by the IUCN. Habitat loss, climate change, and infectious disease have contributed in synergistic ways to cause these extreme population declines. I collaborate with other local herpetologists as well as a nationwide USGS working group to perform early monitoring for a novel, infectious, lethal disease (Batrachochytrium salamandrivorans, Bsal) currently decimating salamander species in Europe and Asia. Bsal is not known in California yet but what is known is that many of our salamander fauna is susceptible. This work not only establishes early baseline records and monitoring of Bsal, but we are also in the planning stages of a likely captive management and disease epidemiology program.

2) Measurement science: Domestic dogs, due to their olfactory prowess, offer an incredible tool for greatly improving humans’ ability to take conservation actions. Predicting which dogs will fit in which working positions, however, is problematic at scale. This aspect of my work asks fundamental questions about the measurement science behind working dog training programs: How can we create reliable, generalizable, and valid ways of measuring both human and dog behavior in order to maximize the efficiency of using working dogs in conservation?