Principal Investigator

Dr. Lise M. Aubry, Associate Professor

Department of Fish, Wildlife and Conservation Biology at CSU & Graduate Program in Ecology

I am originally from France and received my BS and MS degrees from the Universite Paul Sabatier in Toulouse. I conducted my dissertation work at the Max Plank Institute for demographic research in Germany where I studied life history trade-offs in vertebrates. I then moved to Utah State University to pursue postdoctoral research with a focus on wildlife management and human-wildlife conflicts. I then expanded my research program to include climate change impacts on wildlife. I moved to Colorado State University in 2017 to join the Fish Wildlife & Conservation Biology Department where I received tenure in 2021.

Google Scholar

CSU webpage

Global Biodiversity Center

GDPE program

Current Lab

DiDiAlice Coker, PhD student (2026-2030).

Co-advised with Dr. Ana Davidson

DiDi earned her B.S. and M.S. at the University of Nevada Reno, focusing on how climatic warming affects laying dates, multi-brooding, and recruitment in an alpine songbird.

DiDi is generally interested in the behavioral and evolutionary responses of wildlife to anthropogenic stressors.

She studies prairie dog connectivity and interactions with humans at the wildland-urban interface.

Emma Schillerstrom, MS student (2026-2028). Co-advised with Dr. Bill Kendall

Demography and monitoring assessment of bottlenose dolphins in Biscayne Bay

Emma is a master’s student researching the population demography of the Biscayne Bay population of bottlenose dolphins using mark-recapture methods and dorsal fin photo-identification. Her academic background is in marine biology, mathematics, and computer programming. She earned her B.S. in Miami where she spent her time conducting fieldwork on shark-tagging vessels and developing research skills in environmental toxicology and marine genomics. Emma has years of experience in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, managing wildlife monitoring data for National Wildlife Refuges in Alaska as well as creating agency-wide dashboards and tools utilizing federal databases. An avid R and Python user, she is broadly interested in applying data science and quantitative methods to assess anthropogenic impacts on marine megafauna and to achieve international conservation goals.

Gallen Burrell, PhD student (2024-2028)

Co-advised with Dr. Ana Davidson

Ecological and demogaphic signatures of plague resistance in prairie dogs

Galen grew up in the Midwest, earning his B.S. at the University of Michigan and his M.S. in Indiana, where he studied urban bat communities. Galen is interested in population ecology, with an emphasis on conservation and disease dynamics.

For his Ph.D. project, Galen is working with the Aubry lab and Dr. Ana Davidson to study the evolution of plague resistance in black-tailed prairie dogs (Cynomys ludovicianus). He is also collaborating with Dr. Loren Cassin Sackett from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette to gather data across the range of black-tailed prairie dogs.

Alex Badeaud, PhD student (2024-2028)

Co-advised with Dr. Liba Pejchar (Lead)

Consequences of global change for migratory songbirds: using bird banding to evaluate shifts in phenology and data equity

Alex is a NSF Graduate Research Fellow and PhD student in the Graduate Degree Program in Ecology. Her research interests are currently focused on topics related to human disturbance and their effects on bird communities. She is passionate about increasing accessibility within STEM and she aims to use her research as a platform to promote scientific engagement and education within the communities I work with.

Lorena Escobosa, PhD student (2025-2030)

Co-advised with Dr. Cory Williams (Lead)

Life history evolution in Arctic ground squirrels

Lorena is a Ph.D. student researching individual variation in life history strategies in Arctic ground squirrels. She earned her B.S. in biology and computer science from Macalester College, MN.

Lorena is interested in behavioral ecology, life history, hibernation phenology, and quantitative approaches to understanding wildlife responses to environmental change.

Lab Alumni

Past Graduate Students and Postdocs

Robyn Thomas, MSc

Emperor goose demography

Shelley Nelson, PhD

Human-Black Bear Interactions

and bear fitness consequences

Rachel Kanaziz, MS

Demography and Stress Physiology of Ground Squirrels

Jarod Raithel, PhD

Black bear population dynamics and management

Caylee Falvo, MS

Climate Change impacts on Hibernators

Shelley Nelson, Postdoc

2020-2022

Ground Squirrel Life History

Doug Eifler, Research scientist

2017-2020

Whiptail Ecology

Robyn Thomas, MSc

Emperor Goose Demography

Past Undergraduate Students

I work with many undergraduate students including field technicians, honors students, and undergraduate research fellows. Here are some of the great students I have had the chance to work with on research projects.