College of Agriculture & Natural Resources Department of Fisheries and Wildlife

Education:

Ph.D. – Zoology, University of British Columbia, 2022
B.S. – Wildlife Ecology, University of Wisconsin – Stevens Point, 2014

Background:

Sam received her B.S. in Wildlife Ecology from University of Wisconsin – Stevens Point in 2014. She then moved to Canada to earn Ph.D. from the University of British Columbia in 2022, where she studied the population genetics and host-parasite interactions of a tropical social spider. After a postdoc appointment at McGill University with the Canadian Institute of Ecology and Evolution and Living Data Project, she returned to UWSP to begin studying the population genetics of invasive sea lamprey. She is continuing this work at MSU.

Research Interests:

Sam’s current research at MSU primarily involves investigating how management interventions impact the population structure of invasive sea lamprey. Such impacts include changes in effective number of breeders, the size of sibling groups, and the spatial distribution of larval sea lamprey in streams. Sam’s work represents a small part of the Supplemental Controls program, a multi-agency collaborative effort to assess the impacts of experimental sea lamprey management.