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Since January 2015, I have worked as a Vegetation Ecology Volunteer with the Great Smoky Mountains National Park Inventory & Monitoring Program. In collaboration with the Park Ecologist and Wetland Biologist, I developed a parkwide wetland habitat suitability model using ArcGIS and MaxEnt. Over the past year of use, the model has increased the Park's detection rate nearly 300%, suggesting the Park can now detect, inventory and monitor more wetland resources with less time and financial resources. In addition to presenting this work at a Park brownbag lunch, I was invited to present this work in the field to a class of graduate students from the UT Geography Department, pictured above.
Since 2012, I have served on the Tennessee Invasive Plant Council (TNIPC) Board of Directors. TNIPC's mission is to improve public awareness of the threats invasive plant species pose to natural areas and provide information, education, and techical solutions to manage those threats. I spearheaded TNIPC's study on the costs of invasive plant species in Tennessee, helped organize and teach community workshops and organized and led a citizen science canoe trip down the Nolichucky River to monitor invasive non-native Lythrum salicaria (purple loosestrife) populations.
Teaching experience:
Teaching Assistant: Biodiversity (BIO 130); Fall 2013, Spring 2014, UTK
Guest Lecture: Invasive Plants in the Landscape: Ecological and Economic Implications; Fall 2014, Native Plants in the Landscape (PLSCI 421), UTK
Guest Lecture: Ecosystem & Community Management at the National Park Service; Fall 2012, Ecosystem Ecology (EEB 405), UTK
Undergraduate Teaching Assistant: Outdoor Leadership Course; 2010-2011, UTK
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