Krishna Pacifici

Associate Professor
Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources
North Carolina State University

Krishna’s Bio

Nathan J. Hostetter

Assistant Unit Leader – Wildlife
U.S. Geological Survey, North Carolina Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit

Assistant Professor
Department of Applied Ecology
North Carolina State University

Nathan’s Bio

Wes Boone
Postdoctoral Researcher
Project: Assessing Climate Vulnerability in a Highly Adaptable, Wide-ranging, Harvested Species: Direct and indirect effects of climate change on wild turkeys across the southeastern U.S.
Supervisor(s): Krishna Pacifici, Chris Moorman
Broadly, Wes is interested in the implications of anthropogenic disturbance for native and introduced wildlife populations. Wes earned a masters and PhD from the University of Florida, where he studied (MS) impacts of fire frequency on wildlife community composition in the longleaf pine ecosystem, and (PhD) the influence of isolation on the ecology and genetic structure of island-dwelling rodent populations. Wes is also a proud new dad, a cyclist, backpacker, economics enthusiast, and dog dad (x2).

Caitlin Brett
Research Assistant
Project: Coastal Black Bear Project
Supervisor(s): Nathan Hostetter
Caitlin is a research assistant currently helping to lead the Coastal Black Bear Project at NCSU. She completed her B.S. in Landscape Architecture at the Ohio State University before working for several years on various engineering, landscape planning, wildlife biology, and ecological research projects across the U.S. She went on to earn her M.S. from the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, researching the effects of wildlife road-crossing structures on habitat connectivity for the endangered South Texas ocelot and associated wildlife community. She enjoys soccer, running, climbing, camping, biking, and many other “-ings.”

Mikiah Carver-McGinn
PhD Candidate
Project: White-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) ecology along an urban-rural gradient.
Advisor(s): Nathan Hostetter, Chris Moorman
Mikiah earned a B.S. and M.S. from Brigham Young University, where she studied the effects of feral horse presence on greater sage-grouse populations throughout the Great Basin. Her current research investigates variations in white-tailed deer ecology along an urban-rural gradient. Broadly, Mikiah is interested in the responses of animals to environmental changes caused by humans. Mikiah enjoys pilates, mountain biking, and exploring the great outdoors with her husband and fur babies.

Alicia Davis Wassmer
Masters Student
Project: American Alligator Ecology in North Carolina.
Advisor(s): Nathan Hostetter, Krishna Pacifici
Alicia is the Alligator Biologist for the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission; her position is responsible for the development and coordination of a wide range of projects focused on alligator conservation in North Carolina. Alicia received her bachelor’s degree in Fisheries, Wildlife, and Conservation Biology from NC State University in 2015 with a minor in Zoology. Alicia is a member of The Wildlife Society (national and state chapters), the North Carolina Herpetological Society, NC Partners in Amphibian and Reptile Conservation, and the Southeastern Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies’ Alligator Working Group. Aside from her dedication to alligator conservation in North Carolina, Alicia is also passionate about eating good food with great friends, binging Star Trek with her husband and pups, and starting weird new hobbies.

Ha Do
PhD Student
Project: Optimizing Landscape Planning for Co-benefits among Wildlife Populations and Agricultural Communities.
Advisor(s): Krishna Pacifici, Nils Peterson
Ha earned her B.S. in International Economics and Business at Foreign Trade University in Ha Noi, Vietnam and her Master’s degree in Environmental Management at Duke University. In 2021, she started her PhD journey at College of Natural Resources, North Carolina State University. Her research focuses mainly on economic valuation of wildlife areas and how we can integrate more social and economic perspectives into the environmental and natural resources decision making process. Ha also involved in work related to sustainable transboundary water resource management particularly in South East Asia. In the free time, she enjoys calligraphy, making tiny craft works, fruit picking and swimming.

Ben Goldstein
Postdoctoral Researcher
Project: Integrated distribution models for North American mammals as tests of niche conservatism.
Advisor(s): Krishna Pacifici, Roland Kays
Ben is a quantitative ecologist interested in species distribution modeling methods. Ben focuses especially on hierarchical modeling methods for new, high-volume data types like camera traps, participatory science, and passive acoustic monitoring. During his PhD at UC Berkeley, he developed occupancy modeling methods for use with the eBird dataset to investigate how California birds are impacted by severe drought. Now, Ben is a postdoc working on modeling data from a large-scale camera trapping network, Snapshot USA, with iNaturalist participatory science data to understand how phylogeography influences mammal distributions across North America.

Jared Lamb
Masters Student
Project: Population dynamics and harvest susceptibility of white-tailed deer across an urban-rural gradient.
Advisor(s): Nathan Hostetter, Chris Moorman
Jared earned his B.S. in  Fisheries, Wildlife, and Conservation Biology from North Carolina State University. After graduation, he worked as a lead technician on a Mexican Gray Wolf/Elk project at New Mexico State University, as well as a lead technician on the urban white-tailed deer project at NCSU. His research interests lie in the ecology and management of game species and how changing landscapes affect the way conservation methods are applied. Jared thoroughly enjoys fishing, while also spending ample amounts of free time hunting and doing DIY projects..

David J. Moscicki
PhD Candidate
Project: Multi-scale Assessment of Wild Turkey Ecology in North Carolina.
Advisor(s): Krishna Pacifici, Chris Moorman
David grew up near Binghamton New York, and after graduating high school, earned an associate degree in photography and film production. David completed his certification in film production in Seattle, WA. After working for several years in the film industry, David decided on a career change. He completed a Bachelor of Science in fisheries and wildlife at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 2015. After working for several years on numerous research projects, he accepted a master’s position at Louisiana State University which focused on wild turkey movement and habitat use in South-central Texas. David’s research continues to look at the demography of harvestable game species at North Carolina State University, which focuses on the variation in wild turkey survival and reproduction across North Carolina’s three dominant ecoregions.

Emily Nastase
PhD Candidate
Project: Status assessment of the Henslow’s Sparrow (Centronyx henslowii) in North Carolina: Foundational data to guide strategic management to enhance statewide persistence.
Advisor(s): Jaime Collazo
Emily is a research ecologist committed to solving environmental challenges. She earned her B.S. in Biology and B.F.A. in Scientific Illustration from Virginia Commonwealth University. After graduating, Emily worked as a Science Communicator at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science. Emily is currently a PhD candidate at NCSU in the department of Applied Ecology, where she is studying the ecology, distribution, and population genetics of the Henslow’s Sparrow in North Carolina. After earning her degree from NCSU, Emily hopes to aid in the conservation of threatened landscapes and vulnerable species by developing spatial models of natural resources and species distributions. Emily loves coffee, traveling, and enjoys painting, birding, backpacking, and climbing.

Danielle Rivera
Postdoctoral Researcher
Project: Resolving Taxonomic Uncertainty in Caribbean Skink Species.
Advisor(s): Nathan Hostetter, Jaime Collazo, Rayna Bell
Danielle’s interests broadly revolve around finding and describing biodiversity and the patterns and mechanisms which drive evolution in Tropical herpetofauna. She earned her B.S. and M.S. in Biology from the City College of New York which focused on the phylogeography and phylogenetics of skinks in southeastern Brazil. She went on to earn her Ph.D. in Quantitative Biology from University of Texas at Arlington, where she studied the comparative phylogenomics of reptiles and amphibians distributed across Central and South America. Danielle is a nature enthusiast, frequent solo traveler, and is passionate about increasing equity in STEM.

Eric Teitsworth
PhD Candidate
Project: Multi-scale Assessment of the Drivers of Neuse River Waterdog (Necturus lewisi) Distribution and Recruitment.
Advisor(s): Krishna Pacifici
Eric earned a B.S. in Wildlife and Fisheries Science at Penn State University and worked as lab manager in the Miller Applied Population Ecology Lab, where he studied amphibian population dynamics and habitat associations. His research interests are born from a desire to understand how species interact with human-disturbed landscapes and how that knowledge might inform management and conservation decisions. Eric is a passionate naturalist who enjoys backpacking, disc golf, woodworking, and brewing beer with his PhD chemist wife, Taylor.

Visit Eric’s Website

Viviane Zulian
Postdoctoral Researcher
Project: Estimation of US Atlantic Red Snapper (Lutjanus campechanus) abundance.
Advisor(s): Krishna Pacifici, Nathan Hostetter
Viviane completed her masters and PhD from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. Her reseach interests are focused on employment of hierarchical models to understand the distribution and abundance of species of high conservation and management interest. During her masters and PhD, she estimated the global abundance and geographic range of threatened parrot species from South America employing data integration models to combine research-based with citizen-science data. Now, during her postdoc, she is applying statistical models to estimate the abundance of Red Snapper in the Southern US Atlantic Ocean. Viviane loves watercolor painting, hiking, and birdwatching, and also is a coffee and beer enthusiast.

Brieana Shook, 2021-2023
Current position: Ecologist Burt’s Bees

Trifosa Simamora, 2021-2022
Current position: PhD Student, Cornell University

William Casola, 2018-2022
Current position: NSF Office of Polar Programs AAAS Science and Technology Policy Fellow