Director

Dr. Samuel Wasser

Dr. Samuel Wasser is acknowledged worldwide as a pioneer of non-invasive wildlife monitoring methods, including the genetic, endocrine and detection dog techniques used by the Center.

After obtaining his Ph.D. from the University of Washington in 1981, Dr. Wasser received consecutive Career Development Awards from the Guggenheim Foundation and the Smithsonian Institution. In 2001, Dr. Wasser was awarded the Endowed Chair in Conservation Biology by the University of Washington Board of Regents.

Dr. Wasser has participated in a number of conservation programs around the world, in collaboration with state, federal, and international organizations. He was coordinator of the Smithsonian Institution’s Wildlife Conservation and Management Training Program for African Nationals. He also co-edited the book Biogeography and Ecology of the Rain Forests of Eastern Africa, describing one of the most biodiverse “hot-spots” in the world.

His work is internationally respected by scientists, environmental activists, and government and non-government wildlife managers. This places Dr. Wasser in a unique position to negotiate the kinds of conservation solutions needed in our rapidly changing world.

Lab Staff

Celia Mailand

Celia joined the Center for Conservation Biology as an undergraduate volunteer in June of 2004, assisting in the genetic tracking of poached elephant ivory. She became a Center employee in August 2004 and went on to optimize methods to extract DNA from ivory. She has played an important role in creating the geographic-based map of elephant gene frequencies, used to assign large ivory seizures to their places of origin.

An appreciation and love for nature guided Celia to pursue a career in conservation. She enjoys being a participant in the inspirational mission of the Center and to work on a project that has had real impacts on the ivory trade.

In 2005, Celia graduated from the Department of Biology at the University of Washington with a Bachelor of Science. She was a Howard Hughes Biology Fellow as an undergraduate and participated in research programs in the labs of Drs. Benjamin Hall and Roger del Moral.

 

Bob Livingston

Bob joined the Center in May 2008 and brings his expertise from managing high-throughput genetic studies such as the UW Environmental Genome Project where he was the Senior Scientist on the project for six years. Bob is currently working on monitoring the threatened Alberta caribou, moose and wolf populations to measure the impact of the development of the oil sands, North America’s largest oil reserve, and has developed new DNA isolation methods to streamline the analysis of thousands of samples collected over the expansive muskeg habitat. Bob Livingston received his Ph.D. from the University of Washington School of Medicine in 2000 after completing his undergraduate and masters degrees at Texas A&M University.

 

Rebecca Booth

Rebecca Nelson Booth conducts hormone and DNA analyses on the wide variety of animal species studied by the CCB. She is dedicated to combining her love and passion for wildlife and the environment with lab techniques and experiments that facilitate conservation.

Before joining the Center for Conservation Biology, Rebecca worked at Western Fisheries Research Center assisting in the study of Chinook salmon immunology and disease. Rebecca received her A.S. in Biotechnology from Shoreline Community College in 2001, a B.S. in Zoology from the University of Washington in 2004, and has been working in the CCB lab since September 2003.

Lynn Erckmann, Research Technologist

Lynn performs hormone radioimmunoassays for the Center’s laboratory. She is pleased to be able to play a part in studies that promote wildlife conservation, particularly with endangered species.

She joined the Center in June 2008. Prior to that, Lynn worked for 20 years for Dr. John Wingfield in the Laboratory for Environmental Endocrinology at the University of Washington, managing the lab, conduucting hormone radioimmunoassays and overseeing the research birds. During the preceding 20 years she worked for Dr. Gordon Orians on bird behavior, plant-herbivore interactions, and performed chemical assays on plant secondary compounds. She has done extensive field research in Argentina, Costa Rica, Mexico, Alaska, Arizona, and Washington. Lynn received a B.S. in Zoology from the University of Miami in 1964.

Conservation Canine  Staff

Heath Smith

Heath received his B.Sc. from the University of Tennessee in 1996. He began working as a dog handler and orienteer with the Center for Conservation Biology in 2001. Heath now serves as the Program Coordinator for the Center’s Conservation Canine program. Heath is the primary dog trainer and handler for the Center, where he works alongside his best bud, Gator.

 

Bud Marks

Bud received his B.Sc. from the University of Wisconsin – LaCrosse in 2004 with an Environmental Sciences Major and Chemistry Minor. He was an intern on the Northern Spotted Owl study in conjunction with the Center for Conservation Biology and became a dog handler in December 2005. Bud is currently working on the matching project identifying individuals from scat.

 

Post-Doc

Lisa Hayward

Lisa Hayward studies stress physiology. She is particularly interested in developing physiological measures from scat as relevant indicators of disturbance impacts. Currently she is collaborating with her post-doctoral advisor, Dr. Sam Wasser, as well as managers from U.S Fish and Wildlife and the U.S Forest Service, and motorcycle riders from the Blue Ribbon Coalition to examine the effects of off-road vehicle use on the physiology, behavior and reproductive output of the northern spotted owl. Lisa completed her dissertation work in the lab of John Wingfield on the effects of high maternal corticosterone in egg yolk on offspring development and phenotype.

 

Grads

Kathleen Gobush

Kathleen Gobush, Ph.D. completed her doctoral research with the Center for Conservation Biology in June 2008.  Her research examined long term impacts of poaching on a population of wild elephants in Tanzania that was severely poached in the 1980′s.  She investigated how elephant group composition impacts their competitive ability, reproductive output and stress physiology using non-invasive fecal hormone and molecular techniques.  Kathleen was awarded several fellowships to support her graduate work: a University of Washington Alice and Byron Lockwood Graduate Student Fellowship, a National Science Foundation Pre-doctoral Graduate Fellowship and a NSF GK-12 Fellowship.

Kathleen graduated from Barnard College , Columbia University with a B.A. in Biology in 1996. She has backgrounds in field research and laboratory science and brought both skill sets to her doctoral degree pursuit. She studied the behavior ecology and reproduction of several wild species including the black lion tamarin in southern in southern Brazil , greater spear-nosed bats in Trinidad, and Tule elk in Norhern California.  In maintaining her goal of promoting the conservation of endangered species, she now works as a research ecologist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration focusing on the recovery of the critically endangered Hawaiian monk seal.

 

Carly Vynne

Carly Vynne’s principal research interest is in understanding the functional connectivity of landscapes from the perspective of wide-ranging mammals. As a graduate student in our lab, Carly is currently employing Center techniques to study maned wolves and other large mammals in the Cerrado of Brazil. Her Ph.D. research combines fieldwork, DNA and hormone analysis, and spatial modeling to understand the influence of a changing landscape on the plight of unique and endangered species of the South American savannas. Carly has received fellowships from the National Science Foundation, the Center for Applied Biodiversity Science at Conservation International, and the National Security Education Program.

Prior to entering graduate school, Carly worked at Conservation International (CI) as the Senior Manager for Biodiversity Analysis and Planning. Before starting at CI, Carly lived and worked in South Africa on a lion introduction project and was the Staff Scientist for a local Sierra Nevada-based NGO. Carly received her B.A. in Environmental Studies from Middlebury College.

Katherine Ayres

Katherine is a Ph.D. candidate in the department of Biology and the Center for Conservation Biology at the University of Washington and is a Northwest Fisheries Science Center fellow. Katherine received a BA in Biology from Pomona College in 2004 and subsequently worked as a lab technician in the developmental biology lab of Clarissa Cheney at Pomona College studying Drosophila development. Her senior thesis was conducted in the lab of Daniel Martínez at Pomona Collage and described the expression pattern of a gene in hydra involved in nervous system development. She made a dramatic change in study systems to killer whales for her dissertation work. Katherine has a keen interest in the use of non-invasive physiological monitoring tools and understanding how persistent organic pollutants disrupt the endocrine system. She is also interested in the interface between policy and science as it pertains to environmental issues and helps coordinate an Environmental Policy Seminar at the University of Washington.

Siri Nelson

Siri is a graduate student with the department of Biology. She is interested in applying methods from Population Genetics and Evolutionary Biology to Wildlife Conservation. Siri is utilizing the Center’s non-invasive genotyping approach and using immunogenetics to focus her research on the role of disease pressures on threatened and fragmented populations. She is currently focusing her work on African Elephants, but she hopes to develop non-invasive methods that could be applied to other threatened species.

Before coming to the UW, Siri was employed at Seattle Biomedical Research Insitute where she worked as a Research Technician. She worked on pathogen genome sequence projects including Leishmaniasis, Malaria, and African Sleeping Sickness. Siri received a B.S. in Biology, Field Ecology and Environmental Studies from The Evergreen State College.

Jennifer White

Jennifer White is a first year graduate student researching landscape genetic patterns of jaguar and puma in the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico. She is interested in quantifying the relationship between geographic characteristics and spatially explicit genetic information. Her research focuses on wide-ranging carnivore species, such as the jaguar and puma, in patchy environments. By investigating the relationships between human land use, wildlife movement patterns, and phylogeography, Jennifer will create a spatial assessment of the Yucatan’s conservation priorities. Her dissertation work will be applicable to many other wildlife species faced with human encroachment on natural habitats.

Jennifer earned her B.A. degree in Biology and Environmental Studies from Gettysburg College, Pennsylvania. She has worked as a field technician for many projects including: ocelot ecology in Belize, swift fox ecology in Colorado, plant-herbivore dynamics in Panama, herpetofauna biodiversity in South Carolina, plant biodiversity in Minnesota, and non-native plants in the Grand Canyon N.P.. Jennifer has also worked in the laboratory on several wildlife genetics projects with Michigan State University.