Meet Our Team
Current Members
Prof. Wayne Getz, PhD
Prof. Getz is the head of the lab and has been a professor at UC Berkeley since 1979. Having trained over 50 graduate and post graduate students, his specific research interests include population modeling epidemiology and resource wildlife management.
Colin J. Carlson, M.S., PhD Candidate
Colin's research is divided between a general focus on climate change-driven extinction and an applied conservation approach to parasite biodiversity. His primary project is the first global assessment of parasite vulnerability to climate change, as part of the Parasite Ecology Research Project ( www.parasiteecology.org ). His research has also covered a number of other systems including Ebola virus outbreaks and the extinction of the Carolina Parakeet.
Eric Dougherty, PhD Candidate
Eric Dougherty is a third year PhD student interested in the transmission of infectious disease in wildlife, particularly when pathogens are environmentally-borne. Using agent-based modeling methods, he attempts to determine the mechanisms by which disease is maintained in populations and communities, and explore the conditions that result in large outbreaks. His primary focal systems are anthrax (Bacillus anthracis) in ungulate species of Southern Africa and tuberculosis (Mycobacterium mungi) in the banded mongoose (Mungos mungo) in Botswana.
Notable Publication: Dougherty et al. 2015. Paradigms for parasite conservation. Conservation Biology.
Dana Paige Seidel, M.S, PhD Candidate
Dana's research focuses on the movement of large mammals and their diseases, especially those with environmental reservoirs. Her primary system of investigation is anthrax in populations of African Elephant and zebra within Etosha National Park. She is a fellow with the NSF sponsored DS421 Project (ds421), training data scientists to analyse the social-environmental problems prompted by our rapidly changing global climate. Her masters research focused on elk populations in SW Alberta and she hopes to return to the system to study the spread of Chronic Wasting Disease for her dissertation and beyond.
Oliver Muellerklein, PhD Candidate
University of California, Berkeley
Oliver is interested in developing user-interactive browser frameworks as well as high performance computing for population and disease modeling. Specific interests include machine learning and genetic algorithms.
Jagnoor Grewal, B.S Candidate
Noor is a third year undergraduate at UC Berkeley. Her primary areas of interest are data visualization and disease modeling.
Claire Geoghegan, PhD Candidate
University of Pretoria - Mammal Research Institute
Nancy Barker, PhD Candidate
University of KwaZulu-Natal - Wildlife Ecology
Past Ph.D. Students
Scott Fortmann-Roe, PhD
Scott Fortmann-Roe, Methods for Comparative Model Selection and Parameter Estimation in Disparate Modeling Applications, June 2014.
Miriam Tsalyuk, PhD
Miriam Tsalyuk, Vegetation-Herbivory Dynamics in Rangeland Ecosystems: Geospatial Modeling for Savanna and Wildlife Conservation in California and Namibia, July 2014
Carrie Cizauskas, PhD
Carrie Cizauskas, Anthrax disease ecology and immunology of zebra in Etosha National Park, Environmental Science, Policy, and Management Program, May 2013.
Andrew Lyons, PhD
Andrew Lyons. Exploring cross-scale interactions through a biosocial model of a multi-resource harvesting system in South Africa, Environmental Science, Policy, and Management Program, December 2012.
Stephen Bellan, PhD
Stephen Bellan, Anthrax disease ecology of scavengers in Etosha National Park, Environmental Science, Policy, and Management Program, June 2012.
Mateusz Plucinski, PhD
Mateusz Plucinski, Using Infectious Disease Modeling to Explain the Distribution of Disease Burden: from Health Economics to Molecular Epidemiology, June 2012.
Karen Weinbaum, PhD
Karen Weinbaum, Sustainability of bushmeat harvesting in central Africa. May 2012.
Pauline Kamath, PhD
Pauline Kamath, Population genetics of zebra in Etosha National Park, Environmental Science, Policy, and Management Program, May 2010.
Wendy Turner, PhD
Wendy Turner, Animal and parasite ecology of the plains herbivores in Etosha National Park, Environmental Science, Policy, and Management Program, June 2009.
Niclas Norrstrom, PhD
Niclas Norrstrom (co-Chair, University of Skovda, Sweden), Artificial neural networks in models of specialization and sympatric speciation, Lund University, Sweden, Spring 2009.
Craig Tambling, PhD
Craig Tambling, Modeling buffalo-lion interactions and implications for the spread of bovine tuberculosis in Kruger National Park. Mammal Research Institute, University of Pretoria, Spring 2009.
Leo Polansky, PhD
Leo Polansky, Spatial modeling in ecology. Berkeley Environmental Science, Policy, and Management Program, December 2008.
Annaliese Beery, PhD
Annaliese Beery (Co-Chair), Neuroendocrinology of affiliative behavior in group-living rodents, Biophysics Program, Fall 2008.
Allison Lynn Bidlack, PhD
Allison Lynn Bidlack (Co-Chair), Population ecology of two mesopredators in an altered landscape: the red fox and gray fox in California. Environmental Science, Policy, and Management Program, May 2008.
Karen Levy, PhD
Karen Levy, Environmental drivers of water ecology and waterborne disease in the tropics with a particular focus on northern coastal Ecuador, July 2007.
Sadie Jane Ryan, PhD
Sadie Jane Ryan, Spatial ecology of African buffalo and their resources in a savanna ecosystem. Environmental Science, Policy, and Management Program, May 2006.
Jamie Lloyd - Smith, PhD
Jamie Lloyd-Smith, Dispersal and Disease Dynamics in Spatially Structured Populations. Biophysics Program, December 2005.
George Wittemyer, PhD
George Wittemyer, The social and spatial structure of the Samburu, Kenya, elephant population. Environmental Science, Policy, and Management Program, August 2005.
Paul Chafee Cross, PhD
Paul Chafee Cross, Ecology of African buffalo and Bovine tuberculosis in the Kruger National Park, South Africa, May 2005.
Chris Wilmers, PhD
Chris Wilmers, Gray wolf foraging behavior and resource flow to scavengers in Yellowstone National Park, Environmental Science, Policy, and Management Program, August 2004.
Peter William Joseph Baxter, PhD
Peter William Joseph Baxter, Modeling the impacts of African elephant on woody plant diversity in the Kruger National Park, South Africa. Environmental Science, Policy, and Management Program, June 2003.
Stephen D. Lane, PhD
Stephen D. Lane, The effects of host density dependence on the population and evolutionary dynamics of multiple parasitoid host-parasitoid interactions, Integrative Biology Program, May 2002
Jessica Veneris Redfern, PhD
Jessica Veneris Redfern, Manipulating Surface Water Availability to Manage Herbivore Distributions in the Kruger National Park, South Africa, Environmental Science, Policy, and Management Program, May 2002.
Jessica Veneris Redfern, Manipulating Surface Water Availability to Manage Herbivore Distributions in the Kruger National Park, South Africa, Environmental Science, Policy, and Management Program, May 2002.
Michael Ian Westphal, PhD
Michael Ian Westphal, Metapopulation modeling and optimal habitat reconstruction for birds in the Mount Lofty Ranges, South Australia. Environmental Science, Policy, and Management Program, May 2002.
Donald Gray Miller III, PhD
Donald Gray Miller III, The manzanita leaf-gall aphid, Tamalia coweni (Cockerell) (Homptera: Aphididae) as a model systems for studies in elementary social behavior, sex allocation, and life history evolution, Entomology Program, September, 1997.
Travis Porco, PhD
Travis Porco, Mathematical Models of Lyme Disease and Babesiosis in the North Eastern United States, Biophysics Program, April 1994