Research Experience

My professional aspirations are directed toward use and preservation of natural resources, sustainable parks and protected area management, and conservation policy.  I have strived to support this long-term goal through involvement in both social and biological science research positions over the past ten years.

Ph.D. RESEARCH

I am currently enrolled in a Ph.D. program at Texas A&M University in the Department of Recreation, Parks and Tourism Sciences. My doctoral work focuses on the social psychological connections between outdoor recreationists and two island national parks in the US and Australia.  I am using geospatial modeling to examine how social values for ecosystem services relate to biotic conditions in the natural environment and management of people’s recreational experiences.  Specifically, my work spatially identifies “hotspots” that warrant increased attention because of high social value and/or potential for conflict over competing types of human use.  This work has implications for how agencies can most effectively enhance experiences that sustain and fulfill human life, while prioritizing decisions that further conservation of marine protected areas. 

M.S. RESEARCH

Northern Forest region of USA

For my master's research, I was fortunate to be engaged in a collaborative research endeavor led by my previous advisor, Dr. Robert Manning, and Dr. Christopher Monz at Utah State University.  The project's overarching goals were to measure indicators and standards of quality, predict tradeoffs that visitors would be willing to make among outdoor recreation conditions, and conduct ecological inventories across a spectrum of mountain summits in the Northern Forest, including Cascade Mountain, NY, Camel's Hump, VT, and Cadillac Mountain, Acadia National Park, ME.  Our study findings determined that visitors to the three mountain summits were attaining high quality experiences and associated different values with a suite of Indicators and standards of quality. In addition, this research suggested that the environmental conditions at each summit varied based on the recreational opportunities available to the public.

An article featured on the front page of the local newspaper highlighted the research taking place at one of our three project study sites. If you are interested to learn more, please click here for page one and here for page two. More information can also be found in a web write-up from a 2008 survey respondent.

Golden Gate National Recreation Area, CA

I also had the privilege of learning about other research efforts supported by the Parks Studies Laboratory.  For example, I spent the summer of 2007 administering surveys at the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, CA.  During this time, I helped several researchers from Colorado State University with a soundscapes project at Muir Woods National Monument, administered visitor surveys at Alcatraz Island National Park as part of a longitudinal study of perceived crowding, and collected baseline survey data about visitor preferences for management of an area in San Mateo County.

B.A. RESEARCH

Canyon de Chelly National Monument, AZ
During the final year of my undergraduate career, I worked with Dr. Dave White in the School of Community Resources and Development at Arizona State University to conduct my undergraduate thesis on managers' perceptions of visitor experiences at Canyon de Chelly National Monument.  Dr. White allowed me to carve a subset of research out from a larger study; I administered the visitor use survey to park managers and asked them to predict the responses of their visitors. I then interviewed the staff to better understand the similarities and differences in managers' responses.  In addition, I was involved in other aspects of this study that examined levels of place attachment and perceptions of authenticity at Canyon de Chelly.

Mollala River National Recreation Area, OR

I assisted with a study while at Arizona State that examined visitor experiences at the Mollala River NRA, OR, which was carried out by Dr. Dave White and Dr. Randy Virden. This research examined how experience-use-history, place identity and place dependence influenced visitor perceptions of recreation-related impacts to a highly impacted recreation area. 

Yosemite National Park, CA
I helped to scout sampling areas for a transportation study to be carried out at Yosemite National Park, CA. I travelled to Yosemite with several of my labmates at ASU to meet with the outdoor recreation coordinator. This research aimed to select indicators and standards of quality at the park and assess visitors’ perceptions of alternative transportation systems used in the national park system.

ADDITIONAL EXPERIENCES

My research experiences have also extended into the biological sciences. I worked as a field technician on the Northern Divide Grizzly Bear Project, collecting bear hair samples in the backcountry of Montana, just south of Glacier National Park.

I interned with the Student Conservation Association, which inolved identifying suitable lynx habitat and monitoring peregrine falcon nesting sites in Colville, Washington. During this time, I trained for my red card and fought wild land forest fires for the US Forest Service.

I worked as a chimpanzee caregiver at a primate behavioral research center in Phoenix, Arizona, and assisted with a study that examined dominance behavior within male social groups.

Finally, I worked for one year as a bilingual interviewer researching ethnic identification among Hispanic families living in central Phoenix. This work was conducted under the supervision of Dr. Daniel Arreola in the Geography Department at ASU.