Principal Investigator
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Dr. John C. Maerz
Dennis and Sara Carey Distinguished Professor of Forestry and Natural Resources & Josiah Meigs Distinguished Teaching Professor John Maerz is the Dennis and Sarah Carey Distinguished Professor of Forestry and 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.
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Research Coordinator
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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.
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Affiliated Investigators
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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.
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PhD Students
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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.
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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.
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Masters Students
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Hadley Copeland
M.Sc. Student, Wildlife Sciences Hadley is an M.Sc. student in the Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources and she works in the veterinary pathology lab at the University of Georgia. Hadley has a breadth of experiences in wildlife ecology and conservation and working on human impacts and health of aquatic ecosystems. Hadley is broadly interested research that helps improve the management of ecosystems for people and wildlife and is working toward a longer term career in science based extension work. For her masters research, Hadley is evaluating whether imidacloprid use to conserve Eastern hemlocks has subacute affects on the brains and behavior of larval and juvenile stream salamanders.
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Jade Samples
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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.
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Nina Simone Warner M.Sc. Student, Odum School of Ecology Nina Simone Warner is a master’s student and FUSE fellow in the Odum School of Ecology. Nina Simone graduated from Spelman College, where she contributed to multiple ecology research projects through the NIH RISE Program, gaining expertise with crayfish, frogs, turtles, plants, and even venomous lizards. She is interested in reptile and amphibian ecology and conservation. Nina Simone's master’s research focuses on the captive breeding ecology of Striped Newts and Gopher frogs to aid in the species’ repatriation to historic sites in Georgia. She is collaborating with the Atlanta Botanical Garden as part of her research.
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Undergraduate Students
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Elle Dougherty
Fisheries and Wildlife, 2025 Elle is a Fisheries and Wildlife Major in the Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources. During the summer of 2023, Elle was a Field and Data Management intern for the Vermilion Sea Institute in Bahía de los Ángeles, Mexico where she assisted in collecting photo-identification data on the Rhincodon typus population present in this region. For her Senior Thesis research, Elle is analyzing the long-term capture-recapture data on Rhincodon typus from this community science initiative in Bahía de los Ángeles, Mexico to compare survival rates to those published on the species in other regions of the world.
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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.
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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.
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Madison Dacus Fisheries and Wildlife, 2025 Madison Dacus is a Fisheries and Wildlife major in the Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources. For her Senior Thesis research, Madison is analyzing acoustic recordings from managed wetlands to determine whether wetland restoration efforts on managed lands are affecting occupancy of priority nocturnal calling bird species.
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