Principal Investigator
Dr. John C. Maerz
​Carey Professor of Natural Resources &
​Josiah Meigs Distinguished Teaching Professor
cicr.uga.edu/icon-phd-program/John Maerz is the Carey Professor of Natural Resources and a Josiah Meigs Distinguished Teaching Professor in the Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources . He is affiliated with the Center for Integrative Conservation Research's Integrative Conservation Ph.D. Program (ICON) and is adjunct faculty in the Odum School of Ecology. He joined the UGA faculty in 2005. He teaches undergraduate courses in Animal Behavior, Herpetology, Natural Sciences Research, Sustaining Human Societies and the Natural Environment (in New Zealand and Australia), and graduate courses in Principles of Fisheries and Wildlife Management, professional writing (aka Write Club), and Developing University Teaching Skills.

Learn more about John​

Research Coordinator

Vanessa Kinney Terrell
Research Coordinator III
Vanessa Terrell is the joint Research Coordinator for the Maerz and Castleberry Labs within the Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources.  Vanessa is a graduate of UGA and worked in the lab for 1 year on projects including our work on invasive plant impacts on amphibians, the status of the southern dusky salamander, and the effects of residential development on stream salamander communities. She received her masters degree from Indiana State University where she studied crawfish frog ecology and management with Dr. Michael Lannoo.  In addition to coordinating most lab research, Vanessa supervises our gopher frog ecology and captive rearing project.

Affiliated Investigators
Dr. Cyndi Carter
Lecturer
Dr. Carter is a faculty lecturer in the wildlife program at the University of Georgia. She developed and teaches the core major course in Wildlife Science and also teaches Herpetology, Natural History of Georgia, Natural Resources Ecology and Management, and a joint study abroad course in New Zealand and Australia on animal behavior and sustaining human societies and natural environments. Dr. Carter also mentors undergraduates in Senior Thesis research, supports capstone Senior Projects, and co-advises the Herpetological Society. Dr. Carter received her Ph.D. in 2023 from Warnell  studying the evolutionary ecology of salamanders in relation to climate including how natural hybrid zones may contribute to the future responses of salamander populations to climate change. She received her B.Sc. in Ecology from UGA in 2013 and her masters from Eastern Illinois University in 2015. Her undergraduate research examined long-term changes in snake communities in the southwestern U.S. and she dabbled in some road ecology of Gila monsters. Her masters research used stable isotopes to study prey use ontogeny and overlap among species of aquatic snakes.


​Dr. Danielle Bradke
​Postdoctoral Associate

Dr. Bradke received her Ph.D. from Warnell in wildlife ecology and management. She received her B.Sc. in Natural Resources Management and M.Sc. in Biology from Grand Valley State University where she studied eastern massasauga population ecology. Dr. Bradke is broadly interested in quantitative ecology from local to range-wide scales. She uses statistical models and genetic tools to better understand wildlife populations and support conservation decision-making. For her Ph.D. dissertation, Dr. Bradke conducted field research to parameterize hierarchical and integrated population models to guide management of Diamond-backed terrapins and woodland salamanders. For her postdoctoral research, she developed models and served as a core team member for the Florida pine snake and Southern hognose snake Species Status Assessments in collaboration with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. She is currently transitioning to a full time position with the USFWS.

PhD Students

Anuja Mital
​Ph.D. Student, ICON
Anuja Mital is a Ph.D. student through the Integrated Conservation (ICON) program, and is co-supervised by Drs. John Maerz and Krista Capps. She completed a Masters in Wildlife Biology in 2016 in India studying the community ecology and resource partitioning of freshwater turtles in the Ganges river basin. She has also documented freshwater turtle populations across the Brahmaputra river in NE India. Her interests include population ecology of aquatic reptiles, the hydrology and flooding of large rivers, and freshwater habitat management alongside conservation education and outreach. She is also the co-founder of 'Freshwater Turtles and Tortoises of India', a citizen-science initiative to increase awareness and research on this taxa in India.
Corrie Navis
Ph.D. Candidate, ICON
Corrie Navis is a PhD candidate in the Integrative Conservation (ICON) Ph.D. program through the Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources. She received her M.S. in Ecology, Evolution, and Organismal Biology from Eastern Michigan University, and has conducted research on a wide range of taxa, from birds to rodents to herpetofauna. Her research interests include urban ecology, animal behavior, and physiological responses to environmental stressors. She is also known to get very excited about outreach and science communication. For her dissertation research, Corrie is studying the demography of striped newts and developing captive-breeding, rearing, and translocation strategies for augmentation and restoration of Striped newt populations.

Masters Students

Shelby Bauer
​M.Sc. Student, ICAS
Shelby is an M.Sc. student in Integrated Conservation and Sustainability through the Odum School of Ecology. She is co-advised by Drs. John Maerz and Seth Wenger. 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 is broadly interested in the ecology and conservation of the terrestrial-aquatic interface and understanding how habitat structure and ecosystem function in this space relate to species dynamics. 
Photo credit: Brome McCreary
Kirstine Grab
​M.Sc. Student, Wildlife Science
Kirstine is studying how the dynamics of a hybrid zone between two salamander species change in response to the re-introduction of fire. She received her B.Sc. in Ecology, Evolution and Behavior with a minor in Fisheries, Wildlife, and Conservation Biology from the University of Minnesota in 2018. Kirstine is interested in how species interact with each other and their environment, particularly when their environment changes, and using science to inform management decisions. Her background includes domestic and international conservation work with a variety of taxa and organizations.


​Eva Kerr
M.Sc. Student, Wildlife Science

Eva is a masters student in Wildlife Sciences within the Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources. Eva is studying landscape ecology and genetics of Gopher frogs in managed landscapes in Georgia. Eva got Bachelor's degrees in Biology and Environmental Science and a minor in Mathematics from Allegheny College where she was also a four-year varsity athlete and captain of the track team. She published a blog series about riparian buffers and wildlife and has TA'd courses on animal behavior and scientific writing. She has also organized river clean-ups, created a student community supported agriculture (CSA), and worked with middle school students on education and equity.

​​Jade Samples
​M.Sc. Student, Wildlife Science

Jade Samples is a masters student in Wildlife Sciences within the Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources and based collaboratively at the Jones Center at Ichauway. Jade is studying amphibian and plant community responses to wetland restoration efforts at multiple sites in the southeastern coastal plain. She is also building off the work of Corrie Navis's dissertation research by testing long-term translocation success of Striped newts introduced into restored wetlands. Jade received her Bachelors of Science in Wildlife from UGA in 2021 and then worked as technician for Georgia DNR conducting Gopher tortoise surveys. She was also our lead technician for two years running our study of Hemlock management effects on Appalachian salamander populations and did a stint leading backcountry field crews for the USFS in Oregon.
Cassandra Waldrop
​M.Sc. Student, Wildlife Science
Cassandra Waldrop is the Research Coordinator for Dr. Elizabeth McCarty in the Forest Health Lab and a masters student in Wildlife Sciences within in Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources. Cassandra received her bachelor's degree in Fisheries and Wildlife. For her masters research, she is studying the effects of imidaclropid use on stream salamander aquatic abundance and prey availability. Cassandra is also an avid naturalist and talented wildlife painter.
Nina Simone Warner
M.Sc. Student​, Odum School of Ecology
Nina Simone Warnell is an incoming masters student in the Conservation Ecology program in the Odum School of Ecology. She recently graduated from Spellman College. She is interested in amphibian ecology and conservation, particular frog conservation.

Undergraduate Students


​Andie Crenshaw
Fisheries and Wildlife, 2024
Andie is a Fisheries and Wildlife major in the Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources. Andie was selected as a Pathways Intern, which is a competitive fellowship that provides a stipend and research funding to conduct field research while also developing outreach and extension materials. For her research, Andie is collaborating with SC DNR and the Riverbanks Zoo using radio-telemetry to compare the fates of 1 and 2 year old, captive-reared Gopher frogs that have been soft or hard released to a restoration site in South Carolina. Andie will turn this work into her Senior Thesis. Andie is also working on outreach materials on the conservation of Gopher frogs and efforts to restore wetlands in Georgia along with threatened amphibian species.

​Josie Elliott
Fisheries and Wildlife, 2024
Josie is a Fisheries and Wildlife major in the Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources. For her Senior Thesis research, Josie is estimating occupancy patterns of Tiger salamanders in relation to ongoing wetland restoration efforts in Georgia.
Dylan Lange
Fisheries and Wildlife, 2024
Dylan is a Fisheries and Wildlife major in the Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources. For his Senior Thesis research, Dylan is comparing the growth patterns of captive reared, juvenile Northern watersnakes in relation to vitamin supplementation and disease exposure.
Elle Dougherty
Fisheries and Wildlife, 2025
Elle is a Fisheries and Wildlife major in the Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources. For her Senior Thesis research, Elle is analyzing long-term capture-recapture data on Whale sharks in Mexico to compare survival rates to rates published on the species in other regions of the world.
Mary Grace Moore
Fisheries and Wildlife, 2025
Mary Grace Moore is a Fisheries and Wildlife major in the Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources. For her Senior Thesis research, Mary Grace is working with Dr. Cyndi Carter to use digital image analysis to better quantify phenotypic variation among salamander hybrid lineages and correlate that variation with estimates of hybrid genetics.
Sarah Carnes
Fisheries and Wildlife, 2025
Sarah Carnes is a Fisheries and Wildlife major in the Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources. She previously worked on terrestrial salamanders during an REU with Dr. Marth Muñoz at Yale University, and Sarah regularly helps out with our various amphibian research projects. However! For her Senior Thesis research, Sarah is working on primate behavior with Dr. Roberta Salmi.