Cecala-mander/Slay-cala Lab
Dr. Kristen Cecala
I received my B.S. from Davidson College and my Ph.D. from the Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources at the University of Georgia. I am particularly interested in describing mechanisms contributing to patterns of animal responses to environmental change. I hope that this will allow researchers to forecast and mitigate the effects of environmental change on wildlife. Environmental change affects a host of variables - some of which impact behavior and vital rates of amphibians and reptiles contributing to their shrinking population sizes and distributions. We use a combination of observational, manipulative, and modeling techniques to achieve these goals.
Kevin Fouts
Kevin joined Sewanee as the Research Coordinator of the Sewanee Headwaters Initiative. Kevin received his M.S. in Wildlife Management and Ecology from the University of Georgia and has investigated links between management practices and stream salamander communities in the Smoky Mountains. He has also worked with managers of southeastern reservoirs to reduce the incidence of wildlife disease and helped examine the effects of biofuel production on stream water quality. As someone interested in amphibians and reptiles, he shares our research interests and contributes strongly to the success of our lab.
Kostas Andriotis
Kostas c'25 is from Greece and majoring in Integrative Biology. He hopes to learn how to use molecular techniques to learn more about patterns in biology. He has completed work on the effects of hydrologic variability on leopard frogs that was published in Herpetological Conservation & Biology. He is working on a manuscript describing barnacle growth patterns on terrapins. He also secured funding and spent this year collecting data on the population structure of two local stream salamanders.
Ansley Carpenter
Ansley c'25 is an Ecology and Biodiversity major with interests in environmental management. Her work in my lab involves studying drivers of individual variation in intraspecific interactions of headwater salamanders. She has also completed work evaluating geographic growth patterns of Appalachian salamanders. Ansley has also had the opportunity to work on tree demography and physiology in Sewanee and Colorado with Dr. Tom Powell (Sewanee).
James McGrory
James c'25 is an Ecology and Biodiversity and Forestry double major. He joined us this summer to survey for Cumberland Dusky salamander populations and is evaluating patterns of occupancy for stream salamanders in continuous and disjunct streams on the plateau.
Graham Nystrom
Graham c'26 is an Ecology and Biodiversity major. He is leading our research on diamondback terrapins. Graham received a Ledford Scholarship from the Appalachian College Association for his work and spent the summer of 2024 in a boat on the South Carolina coast looking for terrapins. Support for this project was also provided by the Nemours Wildlife Foundation. Graham is also a Tennessee Master Naturalist and works with our Office of Environmental Stewardship and Sustainability.
Davis Peltier
Davis c'27 was in the inaugural class of Sewanee's Life Sciences Fellows and joined the lab in his first semester at Sewanee. He is taking the lead on evaluating stream salamander responses to drought, and he spent this summer searching for salamanders on waterfalls of the Cumberland Plateau. Davis is pictured here doing fieldwork with Graham.
Lab alumni...
... and their next steps.
-Molly Almon c'23: Scientist in the Park, Mammoth Cave National Park
-Kailey Bissell c'18: M.S. @ University of Plymouth
-Maggie Bliss c'16: M.S. @ Technical University of Munich
-Catherine Bratton c'22: Environmental Educator @ McDowell Environmental Center
-Elizabeth Culp c'22: M.S. Student @ North Carolina State
-Saunders Drukker c'17: Ph.D. Student @ Texas State University
-Jaina Gandhi c'16: Nursing
-Dr. Philip Gould c'16: Research Student @ USGS
-Mary Lou Hoffacker c'17: Environmental Consultant @ Booz Allen Hamilton and MNR student @ UGA
-Jeff Kirchberg c'14: GIS Technician @ Maryville Water Administration
-Amanda Liford c'16: M.S. Student @ University of Tennessee
-Lindsey Liles c'16: M.S. @ University of St. Andrews, Garden & Gun Magazine
-Ben McKenzie c'17: M.S. @ Auburn University, GIS Research Specialist, Centers for Disease Control (CDC)
-Ansley Murphy c'19: M.S. Student, City and Regional Planning
-Will Noggle c'14: Medical student @ University of Tennessee
-Ben Sadler c'17: Environmental Consultant @ AECOM
-Eli Walker c'19: Bartlett Tree Experts
-Emma Zeitler c'20: M.S. Student @ University of Florida