Lab Members

Hometown: Hampton, VA

 

​I develop and implement experimental and statistical approaches to  link empirical data to ecological and evolutionary theory. I typically take a mechanistic approach to understand how individual traits (e.g. size, stage and phenotype) scale up to influence population and community level processes and spatial coupling across ecosystems. I have broad interests and my research is very question driven and integrative. As a result I have worked on wide variety of topics, organisms and in a wide array of ecological systems. In my spare time I enjoy running ultramarathons, hiking, camping, traveling, and spending time with my family.​​

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Hometown: Sarasota, FL

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Jessica graduated from the University of South Florida with concurrent BS degrees in Environmental Biology and Environmental Policy, along with a minor in Geographic Information Systems and Technology. She is interested in the ecology and evolution of non-indigenous species, with a focus on reptiles. While at FAU, she earned her master’s degree en route to her PhD. Her dissertation examines the eco-evolutionary challenges faced by introduced species, such as low genetic variation, competition with resident species, and novel predator interactions, and how these pressures drive local adaptation. In her free time, Jessica enjoys going to the beach, fishing, and spending time with her dogs, Skylee and Sugar.

Hometown: Chicago, IL

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Natalia earned her BS in Biological Sciences from Illinois State University and her MS in Environmental Science from Florida Atlantic University HBOI, where she worked in the McCoy Quantitative Ecology Lab. For her MS research, Natalia combined passive acoustics and functional response modeling to quantify predation by durophagous (shell-crushing) predators. After graduation, she took a gap year to work and returned back to the QEL in 2024 to pursue her PhD in Integrative Biology. Her dissertation focuses on understanding how nonlinear processes influence predator-prey interactions, including their indirect effects on disease dynamics. In her free time, Natalia enjoys traveling with her husband, spending time with her dog, and preparing for her son's arrival in November.

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Hometown: Pensacola, FL

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Nate earned his BS in Environmental Sciences, with a minor in Geographic Information Systems, from the University of West Florida. His undergraduate research focused on how tidal influences affect porewater nutrients in subterranean estuaries. He received his MS in Environmental Science from Florida Atlantic University, where he studied internal and radial gas dynamics in tropical seagrasses within Florida Bay. His research interests focus on understanding the plasticity of facilitative relationships and their effects on population dynamics. His dissertation will investigate the mechanisms and stressors that drive facilitation dynamics and develop a framework to understand them at the ecosystem level. In his spare time, Nate loves camping, hiking, SCUBA diving, exploring coffee shops and breweries, and spending time with his two hound dogs and fiancée.