People

Gavin (he/him) is an Assistant Professor of Ecology in the School of Earth, Environment, and Sustainability at the University of Iowa. Prior to joining the Iowa faculty, Gavin was a Research Ecologist with the US Forest Service’s Rocky Mountain Research Station and adjunct faculty in the Biology Department at the University of New Mexico from 2020-2026. Gavin was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Florida and completed his Bachelor’s, Master’s, and PhD degrees at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He currently serves as an Associate Editor at Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment and Fire Ecology. Gavin is a Kavli Fellow with the National Academy of Sciences and has received early career awards from the Association for Fire Ecology (2025 Early Career Award), the American Ornithological Society (2024 Ned K. Johnson Early Investigator), and the USDA (2022 Early Career Scientist). Download Gavin’s (possibly) recent CV here.

gavin-m-jones@uiowa.edu

Kari (she/her) is a Biological Scientist working to develop robust and accessible biodiversity databases for multiple ongoing lab projects. Kari received dual Bachelor’s degrees in 2016 from Utah State University in Conservation/Restoration Ecology and Statistics, and completed her PhD in 2021 in the Environmental Science, Policy, and Management department at University of California-Berkeley on an NSF-GRFP award. She was a BIOS2 Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Montreal in 2022-2023. Kari’s expertise lies in computational ecology, quantitative methods, community ecology, and data management. She has developed multiple software packages for database management, and is interested in developing approaches for tracking biodiversity change over time. You can read more about Kari’s work here.

kari.norman@usda.gov

Caroline (she/her) is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of New Mexico and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Her research uses field studies, remote sensing, and quantitative tools to answer questions that inform wildlife management decisions and advance knowledge of avian ecology and natural history. Caroline earned her PhD in Biology from the University of Washington, where she studied global-change impacts on Magellanic and Galápagos penguins. She recently completed a postdoctoral position with the Arizona Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit, where she worked with resources managers on questions related to bald eagle population dynamics, habitat selection, and migration. Her current research focuses on understanding the association between habitat conditions and spatially explicit trends in pinyon jay abundance. Learn more here.

caroline.d.cappello@gmail.com

Elizabeth (she/her) is a PhD student at the University of Iowa interested in climate change ecology and how disturbances (both human-caused and natural) interact with environmental change to influence biodiversity conservation. Elizabeth received her Bachelor’s degree in Conservation Biology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2022. Her Master’s degree, also obtained from University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2025, focused on how fire, fuels management, and drought interacted to influence occurrence of California spotted owls in the Sierra Nevada. Elizabeth’s PhD research, supported by a National Science Foundation – Graduate Research Fellowship, will focus primarily on the ecology and conservation of Mexican spotted owls in the southwestern United States and how landscape pattern, legacies, and disturbance processes influence individual movements and population ecology.

elizabeth-ng@uiowa.edu

Dani (she/her) is a PhD student at the University of Iowa working on the behavior and population ecology of American pikas in Glacier National Park, MT. Her work will focus on (1) using genetic tools to understand pika population connectivity and climate change vulnerability, and (2) using acoustic recorders and camera traps to understand phenotypic plasticity and adaptability of pikas to changing thermal regimes. Dani completed her Bachelor’s degree in Natural Sciences at the University of Alaska-Anchorage in 2020, and thereafter worked as a research technician on several projects in Alaska, including studies on arctic sea birds, collared pikas, and little brown bats. During her Master’s degree at the University of New Mexico, Dani studied the impacts of rapid climate change on pika occurrence and density in Glacier National Park, Montana.

dani-owens@uiowa.edu

Ronan (he/they) is a senior scientist studying past and ongoing rapid changes to the distribution of wildlife habitat in western North America. Ronan received his Bachelor’s degree in Environmental Science from Southern Methodist University with an emphasis in Biology. He earned a certificate in Geographic Information Systems from the University of North Texas before completing his Master’s degree in Ecology from Utah State University, where he studied the space use ecology of ungulates in landscapes characterized by linear features like roads and fences. Ronan has strong interests in wildlife movement and fire ecology, how these processes interact, and their implications for conservation. You can read more about Ronan and his work here.

ronanhart1@unm.edu

Ceeanna (she/her) is a senior scientist who focuses on understanding how sensitive species are influenced by trophic interactions. Ceeanna graduated from Ohio University in 2015 with dual Bachelor’s degrees in Environmental Biology and Strategic Communications. In 2021, she earned her Master’s degree in Wildlife Ecology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, in which she used infrared nest-video cameras paired with fine-scale GPS tracking to understand trophic and foraging ecology of California spotted owls. Ceeanna is a project leader for the lab’s Mexican spotted owl GPS-tagging project, and has years of experience capturing, handling, banding, GPS-tagging, and taking biological samples from raptors.

czulla@unm.edu

Dana (she/her) is a senior scientist with interests in wildlife ecology and demographic patterns across broad spatial scales, and in benefiting the conservation of endangered and threatened species. In the Jones Lab, Dana will contribute to research on the movement ecology and conservation of Mexican spotted owls. Dana completed a bachelor’s degree in Environmental Science from the University of Washington in 2017. In 2023, Dana earned her MSc from the other UW, University of Wisconsin-Madison, focusing on acoustic monitoring of spotted owls in the Sierra Nevada, California. Dana’s innovative research established the “vocal home range” size of spotted owls and examined approaches for determining pair and breeding status from vocalizations alone.

dsreid22@unm.edu

Ananke (she/her) is an MSc student in the School of Earth, Environment, and Sustainability at the University of Iowa. In cooperation with Los Alamos National Laboratory, she will be working on the movement ecology and conservation of Mexican spotted owls in the Jemez Mountains of northern New Mexico. Ananke completed her Bachelor’s degree in Biology from Reed College in 2022. She has spent the past several years as a Research Technician at the University of Maryland working on analyzing animal movement datasets. Ananke also spent a season as the lead owl bander for Intermountain Bird Observatory in Boise, Idaho. Ananke’s research interests include ornithology (owls, specifically!), quantitative ecology, and movement ecology – all in the context of applied conservation.

ananke-krishnan@uiowa.edu

Lucy (she/her) is an MSc student in the School of Earth, Environment, and Sustainability at the University of Iowa. For her Master’s degree, funded by Los Alamos National Laboratory, Lucy will be working on the movement ecology and conservation of Mexican spotted owls in the Jemez Mountains of northern New Mexico. She graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Natural Resources (honors) from Oregon State University with a Statistics minor in June 2026. During her time at OSU, Lucy was involved in the Betts Landscape Ecology Lab, and her honors thesis focused on bird abundance responses to wildfire using a long-term point count dataset on the H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest. Lucy’s is interested in quantitative wildlife ecology and forest ecosystem conservation.

lucy-heflin@uiowa.edu

Kate McGinn, Postdoc (2023-2025) | Current position: Visiting Assistant Professor, Colorado College

Jessalyn Ayars, Research Fellow (2021-2025) | Current position: PhD student, Oregon State University

Joshua Goldberg, Postdoc (2022-2024) | Current position: Station Statistician, Pacific Northwest Research Station, USDA Forest Service

Lucas Moyer-Horner, Research Associate (2023-2024) | Current position: Visiting Assistant Professor, Kenyon College

Anna Nordseth, Postdoc (2023-2024)

Marilyn Wright, Postdoc (2022-2023) | Current position: Biologist, US Fish and Wildlife Service

Arianna Bowman, Research Intern (2023) | Currently: Undergraduate at Delaware State University

Jack Shutt, Postdoc (2022) | Current position: Postdoc, University of Cambridge