About Me

I am a Ph.D. candidate in the Marine Estuarine and Environmental Sciences Graduate Program and the Department of Biology at the University of Maryland, College Park, where I work with Dr. William F. Fagan. I am a spatial ecologist trained at the interface of geography and biology, and my research integrates movement ecology, remote sensing, and quantitative spatial modeling to understand how environmental change shapes animal movement, connectivity, and ecological dynamics across landscapes.

My work asks how animals perceive, evaluate, and respond to dynamic landscape features, including melting lake ice, seasonal barriers, and shifting landscape permeability. Using Arctic barren-ground caribou as a model system, I examine how fine-scale movement decisions scale up to migration structure and functional connectivity under global change.

My dissertation research, conducted through the Fate of the Caribou Project, includes work on lake-ice crossing behavior during migration and the structure and reuse of summer movement routes under population decline. More broadly, I aim to develop transferable analytical frameworks that link environmental dynamics to animal decision-making and conservation-relevant connectivity.

Education

2021-2026 Ph.D. in Biological and Physical Science, University of Maryland, College Park, USA

2018-2020 M.S. in Geography, University at Buffalo, SUNY, USA

2016-2017 Exchange in Geography, Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong

2013-2017 B.S. in Natural Geography and Resource Environment, Yunnan University, China

Experience

University of Maryland, College Park

Teaching Assistant: Aug 2022 - May 2026

BSCI 103 The World of Biology Lab (2026 Spring) (Section 1100, 1101)
BSCI 103 The World of Biology Lab (2025 Spring) (Section 1100, 1101)
BSCI 161 Principles of Ecology and Evolution Lab (2024 Spring) (Section 6307, 6407)
BSCI 161 Principles of Ecology and Evolution Lab (2023 Fall) (Section 6211, 6210)
BIOL 705 Statistics & Modeling for Biologists (2023 Spring)
BSCI 361 Principles of Ecology (2022 Winter)
BSCI 361 Principles of Ecology (2022 Fall) (Section 0101, 0102, 0103)