Dr. Christine Brown, Postdoctoral Fellow 

Dr. Brown is an ecologist and science communicator, with interests in urban ecology and non-traditional educational outreach and citizen science.

 Dorothy Borowy, PhD Student

Dorothy has broad interests in ecological community structure and function. She focuses on understanding how biotic dispersal vectors and herbivory shape plant community assembly, and the interaction with disturbance.

April Sparkman, PhD Student

April’s research interests are in aquatic ecology. She plans to focus on how the functional and phylogenetic structure of riparian forest communities influence carbon dynamics in adjacent stream reaches.

Nicole Voelker, PhD Student

Nicole has interests in biodiversity in built environments. She will be conducting surveys and experiments to understand the direct and indirect effects humans have on shaping biodiversity patterns at multiple scales in storm water ponds.

Rikke Jepsen, MS Student

Rikke joined the lab in Fall 2016 after finishing her BS in Biological Sciences here at UMBC. Rikke is interesting in the role of novel compounds – namely antimicrobial agents found in personal care products know to pollute rivers – on carbon processing. She is experimentally separating the effects of antibacterial and anti-fungal agents on invertebrate feeding and resource (leaf litter) diversity.

Clare Maffei, MS Student

Clare joined the lab in Fall 2016 after finishing her BS in Environmental Science here at UMBC. Clare is an aspiring urban ecologist with interest in pollinator communities. Clare will be conducting extensive surveys of pollinators across different plant communities (native, non-native) on urban vacant land.

Nicole Felts, MS Student

Nicole joined the lab in Fall 2018 to work on our recently funded project looking at stability of riverine metacommunities.

Undergraduate Interns

Erin Everton (2017)
Tess Gallagher (2017)
Ian Baker (2017)
Ariel Porier (2017)