• Strive to foster a working environment in which every lab member feels valued and respected as both a person and a scientist.
• Recognize that inequities in science and society are pervasive, deep-rooted, and require continual work to be broken down.
• Support each other’s efforts to break down inequity, cultivate inclusivity, expand accessibility, and pursue justice.  
• Acknowledge the historical stewardship of indigenous people, the Yokuts and Miwok, over the land that UC Merced sits upon. 
• Endeavor to conduct research in close collaboration with local communities, wildlife management agencies, and landscape stewards to ensure that our work incorporates diverse perspectives and serves management outcomes.
• Follow our scientific passions within a team environment, encouraging creativity, open-mindedness, humility, enthusiasm, dialogue, and perseverance in the pursuit of rigorous and novel scientific findings.
• Prioritize work-life balance and recognize that we are the best versions of ourselves when we take enough time to switch off.

Probably rooted in my own inability to avoid eating candy, I’m fascinated by foraging behavior and its consequences for individuals, populations, and ecosystems. I strive to understand the aspects of foods that foragers focus on when they are deciding what to eat and to quantify the effects of those decisions on the animal’s health and nutrition, the growth of their populations, and their ecosystem-wide impact. Before starting the HERD Lab at UC Merced, I was an undergrad in Daniel Stouffer’s lab at the University of Canterbury, a graduate student in Robert Pringle and Andy Dobson’s labs at Princeton University, and a postdoc in Jordi Bascompte’s lab at Universitat Zurich. Outside of the office, I spend my time baking, gardening, and hoping the Minnesota Vikings won’t lose.

Sean is a doctoral student who researches behavioral ecology in the world’s largest communally-breeding bird, the Southern Ground-Hornbill Bucorvus leadbeateri. He plans to use spatial, genetic, and observational methods to understand the breeding and territorial behavior of this species at a center of its global abundance: Gorongosa National Park in Mozambique. Broadly, Sean seeks to understand how the group-living strategy functions in this threatened species with an eye towards its long-term conservation. Throughout his PhD, Sean is interested in using multidisciplinary approaches to solve pressing problems facing the field of ecosystem monitoring.

Prior to the HERD Lab, Sean studied the historical ecology of birds in the Los Angeles Basin, earning his Master’s in Avian Ecology at California State University, Los Angeles (2021-2023). Sean also served as a Curatorial Assistant at the Moore Laboratory of Zoology at Occidental College.  Sean worked for three years at the Field Museum in Chicago, redlisted amphibians for the IUCN, and in 2017 conducted agroecological surveys of smallholder farms in northern Tanzania as part of his Bachelor’s thesis in Interdisciplinary Studies at Wheaton College (IL).

When not in the lab, Sean leads custom bird walks , studiously takes notes on Brazilian reality TV, throws legendary jackfruit parties, and mentors people from historically underrepresented backgrounds who are pursuing graduate education. For more, please visit Sean’s website .

Hello! My name is Luca Kuziel (he/him/his) and I am interested in behavioral ecology and conservation biology. I graduated from Princeton University with a BA in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and a minor in Environmental Studies where I was a member of Rob Pringle’s lab. Here in the HERD Lab, I plan to study the mechanisms of herbivore competition and community reassembly using waterbuck and wildebeest in Mozambique’s Gorongosa National Park as a model system. Outside of work I enjoy hiking, watching Brazilian reality TV shows (to practice Portuguese of course), and volunteering in cave restoration.

Hello! My name is Alejandro Ramos and I am a first year Ph.D. student. My research interests include behavioral and population ecology. I earned my BS from UC Davis in Wildlife, Fish, and Conservation Biology, with a minor in Environmental Policy Analysis and Planning. While at UC Davis I worked in the Rypel Lab conducting research with a focus on quantifying Chinook salmon habitat in the California Delta. In my spare time I enjoy connecting with nature through backpacking and hiking.

Hi! This is Selina, and I’m a third year ecology and evolutionary undergraduate at UC Merced. Working with animals, any types of animals, brings me a bunch of joy, and seeing how they interact with one another or with the environment definitely captures my fascination. I was working at a small-animal vet throughout summer, and HERD lab gives me an opportunity to gain experiences with bigger ones. I’m super excited to learn more about possible trends of the relationships between species here in HERD lab, as well as gaining knowledge of the plants and animals in the area that I’m spending my 4 years of undergraduate at! Outside of lab, I’m an officer of UCM Pre-Vet club, was the Vice-President for UCM dance club, and I also enjoy creative writing and writing music, playing instruments, sketching, learning new languages, and taking sunset pictures!

I’m a 3rd year undergraduate at UC Merced, studying ecology and evolution. My academic interests include speciation, interactions between individual bird species, and paleoecology. Outside of academics, I enjoy reading, birding, nature photography and illustration.

Hello! My name is Trizthan (tree-stan), and I’m a third-year Environmental Systems Science student. My journey is fueled by a deep curiosity about how climate change will impact every part of our planet. I contribute to various types of research, and in the HERD Lab, I study the differences in Canada Jay feathers across different environments. Aside from research, my love for the Earth and road trips keeps me connected to nature, while crocheting serves as my therapy, often leading to playful yarn battles with my cat, Misa.