Below are brief descriptions of some of my current and past projects. For a complete listing, see my CV [pdf].
How do seabirds find their food?
My PhD research, currently in full swing, is on the foraging behavior and movement ecology of fish-eating seabirds. I am working on Great Gull Island, NY, a 17-acre speck of land off the north fork of Long Island:
During the summer, this island is home to a large colony of breeding terns. I want to know what strategies and behaviors they use to find the small fish they rely on for food. This research relies on ecological theory, a combination of radar and sonar instruments, and some high-test statistics. Read more…
An ocean observatory for Monterey Bay’s midwater ecology
My master’s thesis at the School of Aquatic and Fisheries Sciences at the University of Washington, was focused on the midwater ecology of Monterey Bay, California. I did not observe it directly, however—my view came from a sonar echosounder located on the seabed in the outer bay, in almost nine hundred meters of water at the edge of the Monterey Submarine Canyon. Read more…