Sam is a Research Associate currently with the Institute of the Environment and Renewable Energy Network at the University of Arizona. He has degrees in Arid Lands Resource Sciences from the University of Arizona and Forest Resources from Clemson University and the University of Idaho. His work has included migration modeling (human and wildlife), landscape connectivity, remote sensing, climate change, and social geography.
Sam is interested in studying migration as it relates to the physical environment and infrastructure. His work focuses on the prompting factors of wildlife migration and predictive modeling of such migration and corridors. He is also interested in studying the relationship between human infrastructure and the changes in migration patterns.
Sam has used GPS collar data to compare the results of landscape connectivity models to actual migration patterns in Elk populations of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. He is currently testing the same data for the relationship between movement, resource selection, phenology, and snowcover.
Spatial analysis of First Passage Time is being used in combination with remotely sensed data of snowcover to find the determining factors involved. Step Selection Function will be used to analyze movement behaviors at coarser scales.
The work will provide a better understanding of what drives elk migration on a spatial and temporal scale. It will also provide integrated methodologies applicable to other migratory species.
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