Google Scholar: http://bit.ly/SUuTCY
I am from the small town Douglas in the heart of the Ottawa Valley, Ontario, Canada. It was here in the rivers, streams and forests of Renfrew County that I first thought I wanted to be a biologist - it was as a volunteer in Costa Rica in 1991 with Youth Challenge International that I knew. My research today is informed by, and about, each place. I obtained a B.Sc. (Hons) and an M.Sc. (1998) in Biology from Trent University in Peterborough Ontario, and then moved to Montreal, Quebec for my Ph.D. (2004) at McGill University. I received an FQAR Postdoctoral Research Fellowship from the Quebec provincial government that I took to the University of Guelph, and in 2008 was hired as an assistant professor in Molecular Ecology at the University of Guelph. Today, most of myresearch program at the University of Guelph (where I am an Associate Professor in the Department of Integrative Biology) is based around questions of the ecology and evolution of biodiversity along elevational and disturbance gradients within Área de Conservación Guanacaste (ACG). My students and I study multiple arthropod taxa; ants and staphylinids and many others. We work collaboratively to document the species that live in ACG (often using DNA barcodes), and then to consider the phylogenetic diversity and calculate functional traits by including data on ecology, life history, thermal tolerance and morphological complement of variables linked to species survival in particular abiotic conditions. In the big picture, this work allows the investigation of how these special neotropical communities respond to a changing climate and better permits the protection of these species and spaces. In my own bigger picture I am a proud husband, father, son, brother and friend - and enjoy sharing my whitewater enthusiasms with all people!
EDUCATION
PhD McGill University 2004 (David M. Green) "Spatial Ecology of Bufo fowleri"
MSc Trent University 1998 (Michael Berrill and Carolyn Kapron) "Estimating photolyase activity for seven amphibian species from south-central Ontario"
BSc Trent University 1996 "Bacterial fitness and plasmid loss: the importance of culture conditions and plasmid size"
I am from the small town Douglas in the heart of the Ottawa Valley, Ontario, Canada. It was here in the rivers, streams and forests of Renfrew County that I first thought I wanted to be a biologist - it was as a volunteer in Costa Rica in 1991 with Youth Challenge International that I knew. My research today is informed by, and about, each place. I obtained a B.Sc. (Hons) and an M.Sc. (1998) in Biology from Trent University in Peterborough Ontario, and then moved to Montreal, Quebec for my Ph.D. (2004) at McGill University. I received an FQAR Postdoctoral Research Fellowship from the Quebec provincial government that I took to the University of Guelph, and in 2008 was hired as an assistant professor in Molecular Ecology at the University of Guelph. Today, most of myresearch program at the University of Guelph (where I am an Associate Professor in the Department of Integrative Biology) is based around questions of the ecology and evolution of biodiversity along elevational and disturbance gradients within Área de Conservación Guanacaste (ACG). My students and I study multiple arthropod taxa; ants and staphylinids and many others. We work collaboratively to document the species that live in ACG (often using DNA barcodes), and then to consider the phylogenetic diversity and calculate functional traits by including data on ecology, life history, thermal tolerance and morphological complement of variables linked to species survival in particular abiotic conditions. In the big picture, this work allows the investigation of how these special neotropical communities respond to a changing climate and better permits the protection of these species and spaces. In my own bigger picture I am a proud husband, father, son, brother and friend - and enjoy sharing my whitewater enthusiasms with all people!
EDUCATION
PhD McGill University 2004 (David M. Green) "Spatial Ecology of Bufo fowleri"
MSc Trent University 1998 (Michael Berrill and Carolyn Kapron) "Estimating photolyase activity for seven amphibian species from south-central Ontario"
BSc Trent University 1996 "Bacterial fitness and plasmid loss: the importance of culture conditions and plasmid size"
