About My Graduate Research
at UNC-Chapel Hill - read about my prospective lab here

 

It’s hard to see the environmental impact of our activities from the ground. Only from a satellite image can we really see human civilization, appearing as a bad case of smallpox across the verdant skin of the earth.

 

As global warming proceeds and precipitation patterns change, plants and animals will have to move to more hospitable areas. However, human alterations to the landscape such as homes, buildings, and open fields will make dispersal more difficult in some places than others.

 

I’m interested in studying this upheaval of species distribution due to climate change. To do this, I want to use existing landscape and species distribution data to try to forecast areas where species might migrate most easily, taking into account their means of dispersal. Those areas could then be targeted for future protection.

 

I'd like to get started performing GIS queries and developing models as soon as I start in the fall. I know I'll need to do a lot more reading than I've already done to really understand what I'm doing, but that can be done along the way.

 

I'm not sure how much opportunity for field work I'll have. That's not too bad a thing since I'll soon be living on 7 acres of riverfront property bordering the Eno River State Park, so I can get my "nature fix" every evening when I'm back from school and on the weekends. When I'm at school, however, I see that as my time to learn and work so that through my research, I can help conserve beautiful places like the one where I live.