Research Group

Advances in research cannot be done in a vacuum but are a result of integrative and collaborative minds that do not think alike.

PI

Michael J Sheriff
Assistant Professor
UMass Dartmouth

[email protected]
@SheriffLab

Michael earned his BSc from the University of Toronto and his PhD from the University of British Columbia with Drs. Charley Krebs and Rudy Boonstra. His interests fall broadly on how ecological stressors can influence the physiology and behaviour of free-living animals, how this effects their fitness, and ultimately scales up to impact population and community dynamics.

Graduate Students

Eleanor DiNuzzo
PhD student 2020-present
UMass Dartmouth

Carolina Ganci
PhD student 2021-present
UMass Dartmouth

Sam Sonnega
PhD student 2021-present
UMass Dartmouth

Eleanor is from Beaver, Pennsylvania and received her BSc in Biodiversity and Conservation from BYU. Her main interests are in behavioral ecology, specifically in understanding how various ecological stresses alter organism behavior and the resulting community interactions and structure as a whole. She has a longstanding interest exploring these questions in marine systems. Eleanor's PhD project will focus on how invasive species disrupt predator induced trait-mediated indirect interactions and alter resource abundance in New England intertidal communities.

Carolina is from Brazil and has a BSc and MSc from UFMS. She is interested in understanding how predation risk may alter the neurobiology of prey. Carolina's PhD project will examine how predation risk infleunces the cognitive behaviour (learning and memory), stress physiology, and neurobiology (brains) of free-living small mammals at the Norcross Research Station.

Sam is from Michigan and received his MSc from Trent University under the supervision of Dennis Murray. Sam is interested in EVERYTHING, but for his PhD he is investigating the relationship between the gut microbiom, predation risk, and risk-induced behaviours in free-living mice at the Norcross Research Station.

Lab Associates

These post-docs and students represent an integral part of the Sheriff lab. While primarily based elsewhere, a major focus of their research involves stress physiology and as such they spend much of their time working in and collaborating with the Sheriff lab.

Abbey Wilson
Carnivore Biologist
Government of Northwest Territories
Canada

Adjunct Professor
University of Saskatchewan

[email protected]

Melanie Dickie
PhD Student 2019-present
University of British Columbia Okanagan

Advised by Adam Ford

Jess Steketee
PhD Student 2017-present
University of New Hampshire

Advised by Rebecca Rowe

Joe (he/him) Hediger
Master's Student 2021-present
Caesar Kleberg Wildlife Research Institute
Texas A&M Kingsville

Advised by Michael Cherry

Ivy Yen
PhD Student 2022-present
University of Maine

Advised by Alessio Mortelliti

Caleb Mckinney
PhD Student 2021-present
Caesar Kleberg Wildlife Research Institute
Texas A&M Kingsville

Advised by Evan Tanner

Dr. Wilson is the Carnivore Biologist for the Wildlife and Fish Division of the Government of the Northwest Territories. She works closely with stakeholders to design and conduct collaborative research, monitoring and management programs. Dr. Wilson is focused on understanding carnivore population distribution, abundance, and health to inform adaptive management and ensure long-term conservation.

Melanie's PhD research will evaluate the influence of human habitat-alteration and predator encroachment on woodland caribou cortisol levels. Melanie works closely with multi-stakeholder groups, such as the Caribou Monitoring Unit at the Alberta Biodiversity Monitoring Institute, to design and implement collaborative landscape-level mensurative experiments to understand the mechanisms in which human habitat-alteration and climate interact to influence the predator and prey community related to caribou declines in western Canada.

Jess received her undergraduate degree in Biology from William Smith College. Her research interests include small mammals, arctic ecology, and understanding the effects of climate change on wildlife populations. Jess’s PhD work will use mark recapture techniques and museum specimens to examine the relationship between stress hormone levels and population dynamics in brown lemmings in northern Alaska

Joe is from Saint Louis, Missouri and received his Doctorate of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Missouri in 2016. He practiced as a small animal emergency veterinarian at the University of Minnesota prior to accepting a graduate research assistantship with Dr. Michael Cherry. His current research assesses how early life ecological and environmental conditions affect short and long term health, wellbeing, and survival in white-tailed deer. He will be analyzing fecal T3 and corticosteroids to answer these questions. Following his time at CKWRI he intends to pursue a career where he can blend his veterinary and wildlife management training towards ecosystem health and conservation.

Caleb earned a B.S. in Wildlife Ecology and Management from Oklahoma State University in 2018, and a MS in Natural Resource Ecology and Management. His MSc research focused on white-tailed deer habitat improvement using prescribed fire and forest thinning practices. He then accepted a graduate assistantship with Dr. Evan Tanner focusing on modeling chestnut-bellied scaled quail population changes in response to spatio-temporal habitat changes at multiple scales. He will be assessing stress hormone levels between stable and declining populations of scaled quail, and the effects of providing supplemental food and water on quail stress hormone levels. He hopes to develop a stress-scape across the landscape showing hot spots of stress for quail.

Undergraduate Students

Haleigh Nogueira
Undergraduate Researcher 2021-present
UMass Dartmouth

Celina Costa
Undergraduate Honours 2022-present
UMass Dartmouth

Vanessa Costa
Undergraduate Researcher 2021-present
UMass Dartmouth

Amy Nickerson
Undergraduate Researcher 2021-present
UMass Dartmouth

Haleigh is a junior biology student at UMass Dartmouth. Prior to attending UMass, she studied veterinary health care and now works as a veterinary technician. She has interests in conservation biology and volunteers at a zoo providing animal care to primates. Haleigh’s project will examine whether the lethality of a predator affects the response of prey in a rocky intertidal system.

Celina is currently a senior biology student at Umass Dartmouth. She has interests in cellular and molecular biology. Celina’s project will investigate whether the interactions between an invasive predator and its prey affects total energy content of prey in an intertidal system.

Vanessa is a junior biology student at UMass Dartmouth concentrating in ecology and evolution. She has many interests which fall under ecology and conservation and is motivated by the beauty and unknowns of nature. She is currently working on developing her individual project but in the future hopes to further pursue her interests in graduate school.

Amy is currently a junior biology student at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. Her concentration is Ecology and Evolution. Her work is to help determine trends and interactions among various species over differentiating periods of time. Amy enjoys all outdoor and recreational activities, which assist in her understanding and passion for the environment!