Dr. Seth Wenger, Professor, Odum School of Ecology. Seth is a freshwater ecologist and conservation biologist who conducts applied ecological research with a broad range of management partners. He also serves as the Director of Science for the UGA River Basin Center and the Director of Public Service and Outreach for the Odum School. He earned a PhD in Ecology from UGA in 2006 and spent a little over five years as a staff scientist with the nonprofit Trout Unlimited before returning to UGA in 2014.
Dr. Mary Freeman is a faculty member with the Odum School who recently retired as a research ecologist from the US Geological Survey’s Eastern Ecological Science Center. Mary’s particular passion is collaborating with academic, agency and NGO colleagues on conservation of rare fishes native to southeastern US streams.
Dr. Phillip Bumpers, Postdoctoral Associate. Phillip also serves as the research coordinator for the Wenger lab. Phillip received his MS in ecology at the Odum School in Dr. Amy Rosemond’s lab where he studied how nutrient enrichment altered the growth and diet of larval salamanders. He recently completed a PhD in Ecology, working with Seth Wenger and Amy Rosemond. He leads a several projects that monitor fish populations in the Etowah and Conasauga rivers that aim to determine how populations of species of interest are changing over time. He has also been heavily involved in other projects in the lab investigating flow ecology relationships of ecosystem processes. Phillip is broadly interested in how global change affects stream ecosystem structure and function with a particular interest in nutrient enrichment, climate change, and urbanization.
Olivia Allen is an M.S. student advised by Seth Wenger and Charles van Rees. She graduated from UGA’s Odum School of Ecology in 2023 with a B.S. in Ecology, with emphases on science communication, freshwater ecosystems, and human geography. During her time as undergraduate, Olivia was a communications assistant for the UGA River Basin Center, as well as a freshwater science research technician and field assistant. She is pursuing her master’s while working as the Communications Coordinator for UGA’s Institute for Resilient Infrastructure Systems, which has informed her research focus on nature-based solutions.
Valeria Aspinall is an M.S. student advised by Seth Wenger and Amanda Rugenski. She received her Bachelor’s of Science degree in Fish, Wildlife and Conservation Biology from Colorado State University in 2020. After graduating, Valeria moved back to her home country of Costa Rica and worked in amphibian conservation with a local NGO, the Costa Rica Wildlife Foundation. She was part of the team that described a new species of endemic frog, Tlalocohyla celeste. She now aims to further understand wetland-specific amphibian communities in northern Costa Rica with the use of bioacoustic recorders.
Annie Blalock, Research Technician. Annie earned a B.A. in Conservation Biology from Middlebury College, and a M.S. in Biological Sciences from the University of Alabama. At Alabama, Annie’s research focused on seasonal carbon-limitation of aquatic insects of Arctic spring-fed streams on the North Slope of Alaska. Annie is broadly interested in the intersection of environmental justice and aquatic community ecology and how it can inform more impactful conservation and natural resource management. Annie joined the River Basin Center in July of 2024 as the joint research technician for the Wenger and van Rees labs.
Emily Chalfin, M.S. student in Integrated Conservation and Sustainability (co-advised by Rhett Jackson). Emily graduated from UMass Amherst with a B.S. in Natural Resource Conservation. She has worked with the USGS Coop Unit in Massachusetts on stream invertebrates, dam removals, freshwater mussel conservation, and eDNA analysis, and with Wisconsin DNR on brook trout conservation. She previously worked in the Wenger Lab as a Research Technician, assisting with freshwater fish surveys and stream temperature modeling.
Caitlin Conn, PhD Candidate (co-advised by Amy Rosemond). Caitlin received her B.A. from Hendrix College with majors in Biology and Religious Studies, and went on to hold a variety of conservation, environmental education, and academic research positions with state agencies, nonprofits, and universities. Caitlin is broadly interested in how human activities, especially management practices, impact freshwater ecosystems and how scientific research can be used to better inform these management practices. Her current research aims to quantify the effects of different flow conditions, and thus different management strategies, on the key ecological functions of stream metabolism and nutrient retention. Specifically, she is examining how changes in primary production, as a response to varying flow conditions, affects these ecological functions.
Aurora Fowler is an M.S. student advised by Seth Wenger and Charles van Rees. She received her bachelor’s degree in marine biology from Nova Southeastern University in May 2021. After graduating, Aurora worked for NOAA as a Fisheries Observer working on commercial fishing vessels in the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean. Aurora spent the last two years working on Little St. Simons Island (LSSI), a barrier islands off the Georgia coast working as the Ecological Coordinator. Aurora’s main research interests are freshwater wetlands and the restoration efforts surrounding them. She is working on a project focused on levee setbacks and floodplain restoration along the Missouri River.
Sara Mateo Ozorio is an M.S. student advised by Seth Wenger. She earned her bachelor’s degree in biology from the Autonomous University of Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic in 2024. As an undergraduate, she worked as a research assistant at the Institute of Zoological and Botanical Research (IIBZ), where she curated the mollusk collection and contributed to projects on terrestrial mollusks, macroinvertebrate ecology, and the effects of human activities on freshwater ecosystems, including community education initiatives. After graduating, she joined the Forest Resources Department of the Ministry of Environment. She is also a collaborator in the Dominican Republic National Ecosystem Assessment (NEA-RD), a project focused on evaluating the state and trends of biodiversity and ecosystem services in the country.
Audrey Mitchell is an M.S. Ecology Non-Thesis student advised by Seth Wenger. She received her B.S. in Fisheries and Wildlife from the University of Georgia in 2015 and has worked at various parks and nature centers for the last ten years, currently serving as the children’s program coordinator at the State Botanical Garden of Georgia. She is particularly interested in supporting the co-interests of communities and their natural resources.
Laura Rack is a Postdoctoral Associate working with the River Basin Center and with the Georgia Water Planning & Policy Center. Her master’s work and PhD work with Mary Freeman focused on the impact of low flows on biota in river systems. She worked with partners at American Rivers and the Upper Flint River Working group to identify potential ecological consequences of severe low-flow in the shoals of the Upper Flint River, and to develop ecological metrics for water planning. In her free time, Laura enjoys running with friends in Athens and finding new spots for trail runs.
Shishir Rao, PhD Student. Shishir is an engineer-turned-ecologist interested in hydrology, freshwater ecology and watershed management of tropical river ecosystems. Broadly, his research focus is on understanding how altered hydrology affects ecology-flow relationships and how reservoirs can be better managed to restore hydrological connectivity and incorporate downstream socio-ecological demands. His past research in the Western Ghats of India dealt with a) understanding the socio-ecological and hydrological impacts of small hydro power projects and 2) quantifying the degree and extent of hydrological alteration by large dams with a focus on developing environmental flows. At the University of Georgia, Shishir is enrolled as a PhD student under the Integrative Conservation and Ecology program.
Dr. Ed Stowe is a Postdoctoral Associate with the Network for Engineering with Nature and the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC) Environmental Laboratory. Ed received a B.S. at Yale University in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and subsequently worked for various conservation, sustainability, and resource management entities. He graduated from UGA with a PhD in Ecology under the co-advisement of Mary Freeman and Seth Wenger.
Eric Walther, Research Professional and PhD student, co-advised by Mary Freeman and Seth Wenger. Born and raised in Washington state, Eric received a B.S. in Biology and a B.A. in History from Western Washington University, and a M.S. in Fisheries from the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Prior to starting his PhD in Ecology at UGA, Eric spent six years working as a fish biologist with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. Broadly, Eric is interested in how the landscape and environment shape the demographics, traits, and ecological processes of freshwater fishes.
Former Lab Folks
Former Postdoctoral Associates:
Lee Dietterich was a postdoctoral researcher in S. Kyle McKay’s group in the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC) Environmental Laboratory (EL), based at the River Basin Center. He is now an Assistant Professor of Biology at Haverford College.
Duncan Elkins, former Postdoctoral Associate. Duncan is now a Lecturer in the Warnell School, just on the other side of the turtle pond at UGA.
Suman Jumani was a postdoctoral researcher with the Network for Engineering with Nature and the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC) Environmental Laboratory (EL), based at the UGA River Basin Center. She received an M.S. in Wildlife Biology and Conservation from the National Centre for Biological Sciences, India, and a PhD from the University of Florida. She is now with the Durable Freshwater Protection program at The Nature Conservancy.
Doug Leasure, former Postdoctoral Associate. Doug is now a Senior Researcher and Data Scientist at the Leverhulme Center at Oxford University. He is also the founder of Geodata Crawler, a nonprofit that provides an automated system for multi-scale GIS data collection.
Kit Wheeler, former Postdoctoral Associate. Kit is now an Assistant Professor at Tennessee Tech.
Former Wenger Graduate Students:
Shelby M. Bauer, M.S. in Integrative Conservation and Sustainability (co-advised by John Maerz). Shelby received her B.Sc. in Zoology from Oregon State University in 2015 and has since worked as a field technician from coast to coast, researching and monitoring amphibians for academic universities, the US Fish and Wildlife Service, and the US Geologic Survey’s Amphibian Research and Monitoring Initiative (ARMI). She earned her MS degree in 2024 and now works for the USGS in Corvallis, OR (Photo credit: Brome McCreary).
Anna Baynes, MS in Conservation Ecology and Sustainable Development. Anna received her B.S. in Environmental Sciences from Elon University. After graduating, Anna worked at UGA Marine Extension as a Marine Education Fellow where she did aquarium husbandry and taught a variety of classes, her favorite being estuary trawls. She also worked at the Oyster Hatchery and the Skidaway Institute of Oceanography studying marine microbes. Anna then worked at the UGA Savannah River Ecology Lab as a research technician studying the spread of rabies in wildlife. Anna graduated in Spring 2022 and is now a PhD student with Allison Roy at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Kyle Connelly, MS (co-advised by Krista Capps). Originally from Northeast Ohio, Kyle earned his B.S. in Wildlife and Fisheries Resources from West Virginia University and has worked on a number of water quality monitoring projects for both watershed NGOs and a regional government agency. After graduating, Kyle spent two years in the Philippines as a Coastal Resource Management Volunteer with the Peace Corps, where he facilitated the collection of local environmental data and helped write a five-year management plan for the area. Kyle graduated in summer, 2021, and currently works for the USDA Forest Service.
Dr. Sameera Talati Gujarathi, Ecology ICON PhD (co-advised by Seth Wenger and Susana Ferreira). “I have worn several hats in my professional career so far. From being an engineer working in the power sector in India, to being a marketing executive and business development manager working in the remote farms of Southeast Asia, India and China to working as an business analyst in the mature biotech industry in Denmark and North America, my varied work experiences drew me back to academics. I am drawn to investigate the interplay between development and environmental degradation or conservation. With a background in Economics from UGA and now as a PhD student with ICON and the Odum school of Ecology, my research focuses on investigating the trade-offs between growth and conservation, socio-economic and ecological impacts of economic growth, and how development shapes conservation attitudes. As a mother of two children who will probably see a very altered world by the time they reach adulthood, sustainable growth is something I care about deeply and I hope my research will address those kind of issues.”
Carleisha Hanns, MS in Integrative Conservation and Sustainability. Carleisha received a BS in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from the University of Tennessee. Prior to starting her MS at Odum, she spent three years working at The Nature Conservancy conducting GIS work for a range of conservation initiatives based in Colorado. For her masters’ degree, Carleisha studied patterns of macroinvertebrate communities in the Conasauga River, Georgia. Carleisha graduated in 2024 and now works for the City of Westminster, Colorado.
Dr. Greg Jacobs, PhD (co-advised by Craig Osenberg). Greg joined the Wenger lab as a PhD student in 2015 to investigate patterns and variation in fish migration and life history in large inland aquatic systems (i.e. lakes and river networks). He has a BS in Biology from Alma College, a MS in Resource Ecology and Management from the School of Natural Resources and the Environment at the University of Michigan, and spent four years as a fish biologist for the US Fish and Wildlife Service before returning for his PhD. He graduated in May, 2021 and is currently a postdoctoral associate at Cornell University.
Jon Skaggs, MS. Jon graduated in December, 2020, with a MS degree in Conservation Ecology and Sustainable Development. His masters degree focused on understanding landscape scale patterns and processes that drive species distributions, with applications to conservation such as systematic spatial conservation prioritization. He is currently a project manager for the UGA Research Institute.
Zach Butler, MS. Zach graduated in May, 2020 with a MS degree in Conservation Ecology and Sustainable Development. His thesis examined the ecological impacts of nine-banded armadillos on barrier islands. Zach now works as a biologist for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
Emily Johnson, former Master’s Student (co-advised by Amy Rosemond). Emily graduated in 2020 with an MS degree in Conservation Ecology and Sustainable Development. Her thesis focused on patterns of aquatic conductivity in urban streams in the Athens area, and the use of conductivity as a real-time monitoring tool. She now works with the consulting firm Tetra Tech in Atlanta.
Dr. Laura Naslund, PhD (co-advised by Amy Rosemond). Laura received a BS in Biology from Duke University where she studied the transport of selenium from mountaintop mining-impacted streams to terrestrial predators through emerging aquatic insects. For her dissertation, Laura studied the impact of small impoundments on greenhouse gas emissions to inform evaluations of the costs and benefits associated with dam removals. Dr. Naslund graduated in 2024 and now works for the US EPA.
John Spencer, former MS student (co-advised by Amy Rosemond). John Kyle Spencer, the first graduate student in the Wenger lab, died unexpectedly in January 2016. He was an extraordinary individual loved for his humor, generosity, energy, enthusiasm, and kindness. He studied urban streams and was passionate about freshwater ecology, conservation and ecological restoration. His legacy is honored by the John Spencer Fellowships and the John Spencer Graduate Student Small Grants.
Dr. Carol Yang, PhD. Carol received her B.S. in Environmental Sciences from the University of Virginia. She worked on lakes in northern Wisconsin, participating in comparative lake surveys and whole-ecosystem experiments to research aquatic-terrestrial linkages. Carol went on to work in Costa Rica for several years, as the Environmental Education coordinator at a K-11 school and program coordinator at a Sustainability Demonstration Center. She finished a PhD in Ecology under the advisement of Seth Wenger in 2023, and now works for the US Fish and Wildlife Service.
Recent Former Freeman Lab Students (there are a lot of other former Freeman Lab Students!)
Jasmine Longmire, MS student in Integrative Conservation and Sustainability (ICAS) advised by Mary Freeman. Jasmine received her bachelor’s degree in Environmental Science with a minor in biology from Georgia Gwinnett College in 2022. Jasmine is broadly interested in freshwater conservation and environmental justice, especially within minority communities that are negatively affected by poor water management. She’s also interested in interdisciplinary areas that overlap and allow for community-based research and learning with youth. Her research involved creation of an effective action plan to conserve and protect the area within and around the Broad River, a large tributary of the Savannah River.
Andrew Nagy, former Master’s Student advised by Mary Freeman. Andrew obtained his B.S. in Ecology at The Ohio State University in 2017. His interests in stream ecology and conservation led him to pursue a Master’s in Conservation Ecology and Sustainable Development in the Odum School of Ecology at UGA. Andrew’s thesis documented life history characteristics of fishes in the Upper Coosa River system and investigated the influence of traits on fish community change in long-term monitoring datasets. Andrew hopes to find a conservation career focused on preserving aquatic biodiversity in human-altered systems.
Former Wenger Lab Personnel:
Mackenzi Hallmark, Research Technician. Mackenzi earned her B.S. from Virginia Tech in Biology. Her previous work as a technician includes amphibian conservation research at Virginia Tech, feral hog population monitoring at Tall Timbers Research Station, and longleaf pine ecosystem hydrology and wetland monitoring at the Jones Center at Ichauway. Mackenzi joined the Wenger Lab in July 2021, and left to start at MS degree at the Odum School in Fall, 2024.
Madeline Martinez, Research Technician. Madeline earned a BS in Marine and Atmospheric Science from the University of Miami in 2020. She was part of the Wenger Lab in 2021-2022 in a technician position that was shared with the Capps Lab.
Maxwell Kleinhans, former Research Technician. Max contributed to numerous projects and led the construction of an integrated database of aquatic species collections for Georgia. He went on to earn a MS degree at the Warnell School at UGA.
Jace Nelson, former Research Professional. Jace coordinated a very large research project with the Georgia Department of Transportation to examine and improve special provisions placed on stream crossing construction projects for the protection of imperiled aquatic species. He now works as a freshwater mussel propagation biologist at the Virginia Fisheries and Aquatic Wildlife Center in Charles City, VA.
Kelly Petersen, former Research Technician. Kelly worked on numerous projects, including leading the writing of a paper on homogenization of Southern Appalachian fish communties. She’s now a PhD student in Ecology with John Wares.
Megan Hagler, former Lab Coordinator. Megan pretty much ran the fish ecology side of the River Basin Center for a decade and a half. She’s now doing amazing things in Portland.
Former Undergraduate Assistants and Interns:
Michael Bell, Andrew Bennett, Dinah Carlton, Carter Coleman, Maggie England-Johns, Isabel Evelyn, Noah Felsberg, Gabby Gravel, Mary Hunt, Chaya James, Callee Manna, Madeline McDonald, Karissa McFadden, Andres Santana, Samantha Siragusa, Emma Spiegel, Jenny Sycamore, Marisa ValeCruz, Sydney Williams and Hannah Yarbrough.