I study how human influence affects mammal distribution and behavior in an effort to apply this knowledge to on-the-ground wildlife conservation. I currently run Wasatch Wildlife Watch, a community science project that leverages the power of the Salt Lake Community and remote sensing camera traps. I’m passionate about teaching and interacting with people, and I firmly believe that the best way to protect the wild lands we all love is to approach it with the entire local community's backing. When not working with or hiking to camera traps, I enjoy playing golf, baseball, and basketball; jeeping, camping, and fishing; and, most importantly, hanging out with my wife and friends.
The U.S. and world population is becoming increasingly concentrated in exurban and suburban lands, creating landscapes known as Wildland Urban Interfaces (WUIs). Living in a WUI can provide benefits to human beings, but also serve as major sources of habitat destruction and fragmentation for wildlife. Leveraging the power of community science and remote sensing through camera trapping, my research is focused on understanding how wildlife use habitat within a WUI. Specifically, I am interested in how mammals navigate a gradient of urban influence, how species behavior changes in response to human influence, and how urban greenspaces can be maximized to promote mammalian distribution.