Leyna Stemle, PhD Candidate

I am interested in geographic information systems, conservation, herpetology, wildlife survivorship, and animal movement. More specifically, I am interested in how we can use movement and habitat use data to improve management practices and policies for wildlife. I received my Bachelor of Science in Marine Biology, with a minor in Environmental Studies, from the Honors Program at Florida Southern College. For my honors thesis at Florida Southern, I studied the movement patterns and natural history of the Striped Mud Turtle in central Florida. During a Fulbright Student Research Grant, I was affiliated with the Ghana Wildlife Division and University of Ghana, researching a method to reduce sea turtle catch in gillnet fisheries. My project exploited the differences in the visual capacities of fish and turtles to deter the sea turtles from nets.