Lab Members
The Lesmeister Predator-Prey lab includes a diverse group of contributors and collaborators.
DAMON LESMEISTER, PhD
Dr. Lesmeister is the Principal Investigator of the lab. He is a Research Wildlife Biologist with USDA Forest Service's Pacific Northwest Research Station and holds Courtesy Faculty appointments with Oregon State University in the Departments of Fisheries and Wildlife, and Forest Engineering, Resources and Management. Dr. Lesmeister co-advises graduate students with OSU faculty. He has studied avian and mammalian predators, and their prey in a variety of forest ecosystems.
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JIM SWINGLE, MS
Jim is a Wildlife Biologist with the US Forest Service and has been with the Pacific Northwest Research Station since 1988. He has conducted research on raptors (northern spotted owls, barred owls, northern pygmy owls, peregrine falcons, gyrfalcons, and northern goshawks), mammalian predators (American martens), and prey (red tree voles). Jim is currently conducting studies on the arboreal red tree vole, specifically, how young forest (<80 years old) contributes to tree vole persistence at the landscape scale for this late-successional and old-growth associated species. Jim also assists researchers as a tree climbing biologist and teaches a tree climbing methods class at Oregon State University and the Forest Service.
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JULIANNA JENKINS, PhD
Dr. Jenkins is a Wildlife Biologist with the USDA Forest Service's Pacific Northwest Research Station. She has been working with the northern spotted owl passive acoustic monitoring team since 2020. Julie is a quantitative wildlife biologist whose research interests center on wildlife responses to environmental change. Julie received her BS in biology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and received her PhD in ecology from the University of Missouri.
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ALAINA THOMAS, MS
Alaina Thomas is an Ecologist with the US Forest Service and field coordinator for the PNW Bioacoustics Lab. She joined the Northern Spotted Owl demography study in 2015 and moved to the bioacoustics project in 2020.
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ZACK RUFF, MS
Zack is a Faculty Research Assistant at Oregon State University and formally a Research Assistant with the US Forest Service. In Zack's various positions he has worked primarily on the northern spotted owl bioacoustics project. His Master's work at Iowa State University focused on the breeding behavior and demography of mountain plovers, and he has also previously worked with sage-grouse, blackbirds, and macaws. His research interests mostly center around avian and population ecology.
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RITA CLAREMONT
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CHRIS McCAFFERTY
Chris is a USFS Crew Leader at the PNW Bioacoustics Lab in Corvallis, OR. He began working with northern spotted owls on the Coast Range demography study in 1995 and led this crew for many years. He has transitioned into passive bioacoustics research over the past few years, including an activity center-based acoustic grid study conducted in 2021 and 2022. Chris currently serves as one of the bioacoustics crew leads working out of Corvallis Forestry Sciences Laboratory.
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KIRSTEN WERT, MS
Kirsten has worked for the PNW Research Station in Corvallis since 2014. As a US Forest Service Biological Science Technician, she helps lead the Coast Range Bioacoustics Field Crew and travels to study areas throughout Washington, Oregon, and Northern California to assist with passive bioacoustic monitoring. Prior to 2021 she conducted field surveys for Northern Spotted Owls for six years on the Tyee and Coast Range study areas.
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NATALIE RUGG
Natalie is an Ecologist with the USDA Forest Service’s Pacific Northwest Research Station. Natalie joined the northern spotted owl bioacoustics monitoring program in 2020 as a field technician and now oversees data management and processing. Natalie’s current projects include investigating western screech-owl distribution, habitat preference, detectability, and the potential impacts of the invasive barred owl.
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RACHEL ZITOMER, PhD
Rachel Zitomer is a USFS Ecologist and leads the Roseburg, OR field crew for the PNW Bioacoustics Lab. Prior to 2024, she worked on plant and pollinator-related projects with Oregon State University and a variety of government agencies.
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AARON HENDERSON
JULIA KASPER, MS
Julia leads the Arcata, CA field crew for the PNW Bioacoustics Lab. Prior to leading the Arcata, CA crew, Julia completed her master’s work at California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo focused on animal behavior and sexual selection. She previously worked on several research projects with dairy cows, livingbearing fish, squirrels, least terns, snowy plovers, and other coastal birds. Her research interests include human-wildlife conflict, wildlife management practices, and biodiversity conservation.
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CHEYENNE STEPHENS
Cheyenne is a Biological Science Technician for the US Forest Service, working to help manage and organize data in the PNW Bioacoustics Lab. Prior to this, she worked on a myriad of field-based research projects, focusing on nesting and breeding ecology and population monitoring. Her favorites included studying Piping Plovers in New Jersey, Least Bitterns in Illinois, and Marbled Murrelets in coastal Oregon. Her time in the field was punctuated by her service in the Peace Corps, where she worked in Guanajuato, Mexico as an Environmental Education volunteer.
Cheyenne received her dual degree at Indiana University, earning her B.S.s in Biology and Animal Behavior in 2018. In her free time she enjoys running, backpacking, and live music. |
MATT WELDY - PhD Student
Matt Weldy is research assistant focusing on demography of small mammals in late succesional forests. He is estimating the abundance of northern flying squirrels (Glaucomys sabrinus), Townsend's chipmunk (Tamias townsendii), western red-backed voles (Myodes californicus) and deer mice (Peromyscus maniculatus). He has also quantified the effects of spatial and temporal covariates on annual survival and recruitment of northern flying squirrels and Townsend's chipmunks.
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CARA APPEL - PhD Student
Cara is a PhD student at OSU and is co-advised by Taal Levi. She is studying wildlife community dynamics using passive bioacoustic monitoring, remote camera traps, and deep learning technologies including the development of convolutional neural networks for automated species identification. Previously, she studied habitat ecology and regional distribution of North American porcupines for her master’s thesis at Humboldt State University.
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JEREMY ROCKWEIT - PhD Candidate
Jeremy is a PhD candidate in the Department of Fisheries, Wildlife, and Conservation Sciences at Oregon State University and is co-advised by Drs. Lesmeister and Katie Dugger. His research focuses on the relationships among fire ecology, forest ecology, and northern spotted owl demographics. His work focuses on understanding how wildfire burn characteristics influence the vital rates of spotted owls and how landscape features, fire weather, and forest structure influence wildfire severity within forests used by spotted owls for nesting and roosting. He completed his master’s degree at the University of Minnesota using biophysical models to assess how variation in weather conditions and nest structure influences the microclimate of spotted owl nests.
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MARNET NGOSI - MS STUDENT
Marnet has spent six years working in the field in vegetation and wildlife monitoring program at Nkhotakota wildlife reserve in Malawi. She is now pursuing a master’s degree in wildlife science at Oregon State University. Her master’s thesis is focused on understanding and quantifying two aspects of translocated elephant population: resource selection patterns and the method of estimating population abundance. Her interest is in exploring the interactions between wildlife and their habitats, particularly focusing on movement to understand wildlife movement patterns and space use. She also has a keen interest in behavior and population dynamics of wildlife species. Marnet is co-advised by Taal Levi.
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ANNA KOHLBERG - MS STUDENT
Anna is thrilled to be joining the PNW Bioacoustics Lab as a graduate student co-advised by Dr. Taal Levi of Oregon State University. Her research focuses on bioacoustics as a non-invasive tool for modeling ecosystem dynamics and population ecology. Anna describes herself as a ‘generalist’ researcher; by applying quantitative methods to bioacoustics data, she has been able to work on a variety of projects with different taxa, from analyzing African forest elephant communication to building machine-learning models for identifying bees! At OSU, Anna will use passive acoustic monitoring and remote sensing data (e.g., LiDAR) to study the bird communities of Pacific Northwest forests.
Anna grew up outside Boston, MA, and received a bachelor's degree from UMass Amherst. When she is not in the field or the lab, you can usually find Anna biking, hiking, reading, doing a crossword puzzle, or enjoying time with friends. |
JACOB CRAWFORD - ORISE RESEARCH FELLOW
Jacob is an Oak Ridge Institute of Science and Education (ORISE) Research Fellow with the bioacoustics lab studying the habitat preferences and interspecific interactions of the Northern Saw-whet Owl across the Pacific Northwest. He graduated from the University of Vermont in 2022 with his B.S. in Wildlife Biology. It was here that Jacob fostered a deep passion for avian conservation, citizen science, and ecologically minded forestry practices. Prior to his fellowship with the bioacoustics lab, Jacob was a Forest Conservation Intern at Audubon Vermont and, subsequently, Audubon Vermont’s Chapter Engagement and Community Science AmeriCorps member. Jacob is an avid birder who spends every moment he has free to explore the birds around him. He also volunteers as a regional reviewer for eBird.org and participates in the Winter Raptor Survey (hosted by the East Cascades Audubon Society) and the Christmas Bird Count. When he is not birding, Jacob enjoys hunting, fishing, ice fishing, hiking, camping, and playing board games.
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ALEENA HABIB - ORISE RESEARCH FELLOW
Aleena is an Oak Ridge Institute of Science and Education (ORISE) Research Fellow with the bioacoustics lab studying the effects of anthropogenic noise and landscape features on Northern saw-whet owl habitat use. She assists with acoustic data management and processing in the laboratory. Aleena graduated from Boise State University in 2022 with her B.S. in Biology, with an emphasis in Ecology, Evolution, and Animal Behavior. Prior to her fellowship, Aleena was a student research assistant in a Tardigrade lab where she developed a great appreciation for the microscopic world. She was also a member of the Barber Sensory Ecology lab at Boise State, where she worked on projects evaluating the impacts of light pollution on bats and moths. It was during this time that she developed her passion for acoustics and the mitigation of sensory pollutants such as light and anthropogenic noise. Outside of the lab, Aleena loves karate, preserving plants, film photography, and spending time with her pets.
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Lab Alumni
Shane Pruett, Faculty Research Assistant 2016-2019
Preston Durham, Graduate Student, 2019 MS from Oregon State University
Janice Reid, USFS Wildlife Biologist, retired 2019
Leila Duchac, Graduate Student and Research Assistant, 2019 MS from Oregon State University
Jordan Rodriguez, Research Assistant 2018-2020
Ashlee Mikkelsen, Graduate Student and Research Assistant, 2021 MS from Oregon State University
Mark Linnel, Research Assistant, 2015-2022
Stan Sovern, Cle Elum Crew Leader, 1992-2021
Marie Tosa, PhD student, 2023 PhD from Oregon State University
Hailey Hester, Biological Science Technician, 2020-2023
Preston Durham, Graduate Student, 2019 MS from Oregon State University
Janice Reid, USFS Wildlife Biologist, retired 2019
Leila Duchac, Graduate Student and Research Assistant, 2019 MS from Oregon State University
Jordan Rodriguez, Research Assistant 2018-2020
Ashlee Mikkelsen, Graduate Student and Research Assistant, 2021 MS from Oregon State University
Mark Linnel, Research Assistant, 2015-2022
Stan Sovern, Cle Elum Crew Leader, 1992-2021
Marie Tosa, PhD student, 2023 PhD from Oregon State University
Hailey Hester, Biological Science Technician, 2020-2023
Lesmeister Wildlife Ecology Lab
USDA Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station
Corvallis Forestry Sciences Laboratory
Oregon State University
3200 SW Jefferson Way
Corvallis, OR 97330
541-750-7250
USDA Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station
Corvallis Forestry Sciences Laboratory
Oregon State University
3200 SW Jefferson Way
Corvallis, OR 97330
541-750-7250