Elizabeth A. Hunter, PhD

Dr. Hunter received her M.S. degree from the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry, and her PhD from the University of Georgia.  She joined the Virginia Unit as an Assistant Unit Leader in 2021.  Her research program focuses on developing management strategies for at-risk species in the face of global change, with a primary taxonomic focus on birds and reptiles.   Her research is centered around two main themes: the conservation and management of species in the face of climate change, and ecosystem restoration through species reintroductions and habitat management. She has expertise in population estimation through Bayesian hierarchical population models used in wildlife ecology (e.g., spatial mark-recapture models, occupancy, and density models), but uses a variety of quantitative techniques regularly (e.g., generalized linear and additive [mixed] models, individual-based simulation models, and machine learning methods such as random forests). She has taught college courses on landscape ecology, conservation biology, and introductory programming in R.