Allison Roy

Allison joined the Massachusetts Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Unit in 2012 as Assistant Unit Leader of Fisheries and became Unit Leader in 2020. She received her MS and PhD degrees from the University of Georgia and worked at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Kutztown University before joining the U.S. Geological Survey. Her research broadly revolves around characterizing anthropogenic impacts on aquatic ecosystems and identifying conservation strategies for effectively protecting and restoring watersheds. The growing human population continues to constrain biotic assemblages in a variety of ways and understanding the mechanisms by which urbanization and its associated stressors result in degraded fish and macroinvertebrate assemblages is an overarching challenge of her research program. She examines effects of altered hydrology, temperature, habitat, water quality, and food resources on biota (fishes, macroinvertebrates, freshwater mussels), assesses responses of aquatic ecosystems to restoration (e.g., forested riparian buffers, green infrastructure, dam removal), and develops frameworks to inform decision-making for watershed and species conservation and management. At the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Dr. Roy teaches Research Concepts for first-year graduate students and Aquatic Ecology for advanced undergraduate and graduate students.