Our Lab

Maru Iezzi
Postdoctoral Associate
Maru received her BS degree and Ph.D. from the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Maru is interested in large-scale conservation. As part of her postdoc, Maru is assessing the efficacy of the Florida Wildlife Corridor and connectivity for mammals across the region.

Rob Fletcher
Professor and Leader of the Lab
Rob is the Miriam Rothschild Professor of Conservation Biology at the University of Cambridge and former Professor at the Wildlife Ecology & Conservation Department at the University of Florida. He is a big fan of critical thinking and integrating diverse perspectives into ecology, conservation, and management.

Lara Elmquist
Project Manager
Lara received her B.S. degree from Tulane University and MS from the University of Florida. She supervises long-term research and monitoring on the endangered snail kite.

Charles Emogor
Postdoctoral Associate
Charles focuses on crime prevention in African protected areas, leveraging long-term spatial data on poaching . He is a 2024 Schmidt Science Fellow & 2021 National Geographic Explorer. Charles earned his PhD from the University of Cambridge in 2024. He is co-supervised by Anil Madhavapeddy & Milind Tambe. Discover more about his work here.

Joe Langley
Ph.D. student
Joe received his MSc in Conservation from University College London. He is interested in human-wildlife conflict and landscape conservation, especially across sub-Saharan Africa and in relation to large mammals.

Oscar Godinez
Ph.D. student
Oscar received his M.S. from the Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo in Mexico. He is interested in the study and conservation of habitat connectivity of tropical mammal communities.

Andrew Marx
Software developer
Andrew received his M.S. from the University of Florida. He is interested in data science and developing reliable software for ecologists, evolutionary biologists, and conservationists. He is working on building software for new connectivity models and is the developer of the samc package and maintains the gdistance package.

Julia Weiss
Ph.D. student
Julia received her B.S. from the University of Michigan and her M.S. from the University of Edinburgh. Julia seeks to understand how human pressures such as land-use change and climate change are altering ecosystem functioning and connectivity, with a particular focus on avian communities. Julia is co-supervised by David Edwards.

Arman Pili
Postdoctoral Associate
Arman received his Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Environmental Biology in the Phillipines, and his PhD. at Monash University, Australia. He is is a quantitative and applied conservation ecologist that is leading work on global connectivity mapping and related applications.

Brian Jeffery
Ph.D. Student
Brian received his M.S. from the University of Florida. For his dissertation, he is investigating the role of climate change on bird populations and communities.

Savannah Troy
Ph.D. candidate
Savannah received her BS degree from the University of Texas. She is interested in landscape ecology and conservation, with an eye toward problems of global conservation strategies for connectivity and mitigating habitat degradation.

Rachel Spring
Conservation Science Group Administrator
Rachel keeps our lab and the broader Conservation Science Group flourishing. She works with everyone to facilitate research, teaching, visitors, and other related activities.