M.Sc. student in the Wildlife Ecology and Conservation Department, University of Florida; B.Sc. in Biology from Universidad Autónoma de Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.
Oniel is working towards a TCD graduate certificate and a M.Sc. in Wildlife Ecology and Conservation under the advisement of Dr. Corey T. Callaghan. For the past six years, Oniel has worked on projects related to Hispaniolan mollusk diversity and conservation, the management of invasive mollusk species in the Dominican Republic, and the mobilization of data from the country’s natural history collections. His undergraduate project focused on identifying conservation areas for mollusks in the Dominican Republic by integrating data from collections, citizen science platforms, and published literature. He has also studied coastal mollusk communities in urban areas of the Dominican Republic to evaluate how urbanization and other anthropogenic pressures might influence ecological patterns such as taxonomic turnover, species distribution, and abundance, underscoring the role of urbanization and pollution in shaping coastal invertebrate dynamics.
Building on these experiences, Oniel is currently interested in mollusk macroecology and conservation biogeography, with an emphasis on the integration of biodiversity data from citizen science platforms like iNaturalist, and global biodiversity data repositories like GBIF, to his research. For his master’s research, he aims to examine macroecological and biogeographic patterns of mollusks across the Americas while assessing how biases in citizen science and collection data might influence his scientific outcomes.
M.Sc. student in the Wildlife Ecology and Conservation Department, University of Florida; B.Sc. in Biology from the University of Guyana.
Elion is working towards a TCD graduate certificate and a M.Sc. in Wildlife Ecology and Conservation under the advisement of Dr. Matthew Hallett. Before coming to UF, Elion obtained a B.Sc. in Biology with a specialization in Zoology from the University of Guyana. For the past four years, he has been working on various projects related to biodiversity assessments, environmental impact assessments, and biodiversity conservation. Elion has also taught biology courses to undergraduate students at the University of Guyana. Additionally, he mentored undergraduate students and co-led workshops on biodiversity conservation, and from these experiences, he developed his current research interest.
For his master’s research, Elion examines spatial and temporal distributions of bird assemblages, emphasizing the integration of biodiversity data from citizen science platforms such as eBird. He wants to understand how migratory shorebirds are shifting their habitat preferences between intertidal ecosystems and agroecosystems and how these shifts are influenced by factors such as land use and development and tidal activity.
Joshua Benjamin
Ph.D. candidate in Department of Biology, University of Florida; M.S. in Limnology and Wetland Management, BOKU University, Austria and IHE-Delft, The Netherlands; B.Sc. in Environmental Studies, Karatina University, Kenya.
Joshua is working towards a TCD graduate certificate and a Ph.D. in Zoology at the University of Florida. He also doubles as an avid freshwater ecologist. He holds a M. Sc. degree in limnology and wetland management from BOKU University and IHE-Delft and a B.Sc. degree in Environmental Science from Karatina University, Kenya. Additionally, Joshua holds certification in climate change and sustainable development from Amirkabir University of Technology in Iran. He is also a macroinvertebrate expert and SASS practitioner with training from Ground Truth, South Africa.
His current research work focuses on assessing the longitudinal changes in fish assemblages, macroinvertebrate communities, and trace element concentrations in an Afrotropical River. Joshua is interested in freshwater biodiversity in the face of climate change and other anthropogenic stressors such as land use change and emerging pollutants.
Claudia Juliana Garnica-Día
Claudia Juliana Garnica-Díaz is a Colombian plant ecologist whose research focuses on how plants adapt to environmental stressors such as drought and heat in both tropical and temperate forests. At the University of Florida’s biology department, under the guidance of Dr. Grace P. John and Dr. Jeremy Lichstein, her doctoral work integrates studies of plant traits, anatomy, physiology, and climate records to understand how plants respond to changing environments. She has investigated trait–environment relationships in Colombian montane forests, tested how Florida oaks respond to experimental heatwaves, and examined the long-term impacts of drought in an Indiana forest.
Claudia began her academic journey in Bogotá, where her undergraduate thesis in Forest Engineering, under the guidance of Dr. Beatriz Salgado-Negret, explored elevational gradients in Andean and páramo ecosystems. She then pursued a master’s degree in Biology at the University of Puerto Rico–Mayagüez, where she worked with Dr. Catherine Hulshof to research plant diversity across serpentine and volcanic soils. These experiences shaped her interests in ecology, plant–soil interactions, and environmental change.
In addition to her research, Claudia is dedicated to making science more inclusive and accessible. She has mentored undergraduate students, co-led workshops on equity, field safety, and collaboration through the Just International Science initiative and the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) committee of the Association of Tropical Biology and Conservation (ATBC), and helped create mentoring programs through the NSF-funded ROOT & SHOOT initiative. As president of the UF SACNAS chapter, she launched the first 3-minute-thesis (3MT) Competition en Español to highlight the role of language in science communication.
Her efforts in research, teaching, and service have been recognized with honors, including induction into the Edward A. Bouchet Graduate Honor Society, the Alec Courtelis Award for International Students, and the SACNAS Innovative Science Award during her time as president of the Florida chapter. Looking ahead, Claudia hopes to connect her ecological research with community engagement to support conservation and broaden participation in science.
Ana María Garrido Corredor
Ph.D. student in the Anthropology Department, University of Florida; M.Sc. in Environmental Anthropology at the University of Kent, United Kingdom; B.A. in Anthropology and B.Sc. in Biology from Universidad de Los Andes, Bogotá, Colombia.
Ana María is working towards a TCD graduate certificate and a Ph.D. in Anthropology student under advisement of Dr. Catherine Tucker. For the past eight years, she has been working on various projects concerning socio-environmental conflicts, resource governance, and community-based conservation. Her research has focused on understanding the impacts of extractive economies, particularly gold mining, on the livelihoods of afro-descendant communities inhabiting the Pacific Region of Colombia. Additionally, during the last three years, she has been working in the Science-Policy interface in Colombia, designing and implementing environmental policies to strengthen local initiatives for the sustainable management of natural resources. From these experiences, she developed her current research interests, which focus on understanding how global conservation agendas, coupled with national and international economic processes, intersect with the everyday politics of resource management and use and shape the cultural and symbolic meaning of human-forest interactions.
Ana María is interested in conducting interdisciplinary research, combining qualitative methods such as participant observation and interviews, and methodologies of economic botany, mainly ethnobotanical inventories, as complementary ways of understanding the relationship between plants and people in agroforest landscapes.
Sarina Kawal
PhD student in the Interdisciplinary Ecology program; Master’s in Sustainable Development Practice from the University of Florida; B.Sc. in Environmental Studies from the University of Guyana.
Sarina is working towards a PhD in Interdisciplinary Ecology under the guidance of Dr Matt Hallett. Sarina obtained the TCD graduate certificate and a professional Master’s degree in Sustainable Development Practice from the University of Florida in 2023. Sarina has worked in the development sector for the past twelve years, the last two of which were spent managing a major livelihoods project in Guyana’s most biodiverse region. As a project manager, she has managed a wide range of developmental projects, both government and donor funded, including field surveys in the social, agricultural, and environmental arenas. For her master’s degree, she conducted a baseline assessment on human-wildlife conflict with a focus on small carnivores and small livestock. Sarina’s current research focuses on examining the impact of human-wildlife conflict on food security in the Rupununi region of Guyana.
Samagya Kharel
MDP student in the Sustainable Development Practice program, Center for Latin American Studies and Center for African Studies, University of Florida; MSc, Animal Science (Animal Breeding), Agriculture and Forestry University, Nepal and BS, Veterinary Science and Animal Husbandry, Purbanchal University, Nepal.
Before coming to UF, Samagya has taught animal science courses to undergraduate students at two universities in Nepal: Himalayan College of Agricultural Sciences and Technology (HICAST) and Kathmandu University. She also worked with rural communities on capacity-building initiatives aimed at promoting agro-ecological practices and sustainable development, as well as empowering vulnerable populations and women. She is a recipient of a faculty research grant from HICAST to “Study livestock production systems and management practices adopted by small ruminant farmers in Bagmati province, Nepal” and a young scientist award to “Study the prolificacy (FecB) gene and its effect on lamb growth in Kage sheep of Nepal” from Nepal Academy of Science and Technology.She is passionate about bridging the gap between science and society through effective communication, making knowledge accessible and engaging for diverse audiences.
Samagya is currently working towards a TCD graduate certificate and a MDP degree. For her master’s research, she hopes to examine how environmental issues such as climate change are affecting biodiversity and livestock production system.
Hanan Lachmansingh
Hanan Lachmansingh is a current master’s student in the University of Florida Department of Wildlife Ecology and Conservation. Hanan’s research focuses on the human dimensions of shorebird harvest in Guyana and Alaska. She is exploring the socio cultural and socio-economic aspects of shorebird harvest in communities, from a transcontinental perspective.
Her research is taking place in coastal villages in Guyana and Toksook Bay, Alaska, where she plans to leverage local knowledge to construct a locally-based, transcontinental approach to global shorebird conservation projects. Hanan is being advised by Dr. Matthew Hallett.
Before joining UF, Hanan worked as a research assistant at the Guyana Wildlife Conservation and Management Commission for two years, where she supported biodiversity assessments and conservation communication projects. Hanan received her BSc in Environmental Science with a minor in Anthropology from the University of the West Indies, Trinidad and Tobago.
Hanan’s interests also include decoloniality, climate justice, and gender and development.
Viviana Rojas
Ph.D. Candidate at the Wildlife Ecology and Conservation Department; MSc in Interdisciplinary Ecology, School of Natural Resources and Environment and B.Sc. in Biology from the Universidad Nacional de Asuncion, Paraguay.
Viviana (Vivi) is a biologist from Paraguay who graduated from the Universidad Nacional de Asunción. Vivi was awarded with the Fulbright scholarship to pursue a master’s degree in the Molecular Ecology Lab at the University of Florida working with Dr James Austin. Her master’s research focused on small mammal (rodent) dispersal in sub-Saharan Africa, where she worked in Swaziland at the Savannah Research Centre.
Vivi returned to her country and worked on several conservation projects led by a national NGO and soon after she became the Species Conservation Program Coordinator. Now, she is pursuing her PhD in Wildlife Ecology and Conservation with a concentration in Tropical Conservation and Development. She is now looking forward to incorporating more interdisciplinary approaches to link her research to conservation practice and decision making.
She works in protected areas of the Paraguayan Chaco Forest, a deforestation hot spot, looking to better understand medium and large mammal communities and how they respond to the current anthropogenic threats.