Personal Summary

Leah is broadly interested in the ecology of emerging infectious wildlife diseases. Her research focuses on measuring and modeling various habitat and community-level factors that shape infection dynamics and allow these diseases to persist as an endemic, specifically with chytrid fungus infections in amphibians. She is a NSF Graduate Research Fellow and a Glacier National Park Conservancy Research Fellow. In addition to her dissertation research, Leah monitors amphibian populations in western Montana with the USGS.

Although originally from Ohio, Leah received a B.S. in Marine Science and Biology from the University of Tampa and went on to attend the University of South Florida for a year in the Integrative Biology master’s program. In Florida, Leah studied ecotoxicology and non-amphibian hosts of chytrid fungus. She has also studied native bumblebee population ecology at the Rocky Mountain Biological Lab in Colorado, tested tiger salamander populations to understand chytrid fungus distribution in south-central Colorado, radio-tracked western toads in Wyoming to understand habitat use and disease risk, and worked at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama to identify possible non-amphibian hosts for chytrid fungus. In her free time, Leah enjoys hiking with her dog, backpacking, skiing, and taking road trips to towns where she can visit breweries and distilleries, and, of course, find cool species of amphibians.

Education

University of Tampa, 2011-2015
- Bachelor of Science in Marine Science and Biology with Environmental Science Minor

Honors / Awards

National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program 2016-2017 Fellow