Gotham Coyote is a collaboration of researchers and educators from several institutions around the region working together to better understand coyotes and their role in our urban ecosystem. We are very proud that our team has included dozens of high school students over the years. Providing opportunities for high school students to conduct wildlife research in their own backyards has been a central component of what we do.
Olivia Allison Asher currently attends Macauly Honors College at Lehman where she is studying biology. Olivia started working with Gotham Coyote as a high school intern in the Science Research Mentoring Program at the AMNH and continues to study the diet of NYC coyotes during her gap year, leads field testing of telemetry equipment, and runs Gotham Coyote's social media and blog. Olivia is also a Teaching Assistant for the AMNH's Lang Science Program where she is helping students design a game on NYC coyotes. In addition to her work on coyotes, Olivia writes about a variety of scientific topics on her blog The Science Notebook.
Russell Burke is a Professor of Biology and Donald E. Axinn Distinguished Professor in Ecology and Conservation at Hofstra University. He teaches graduate and undergraduate disease ecology, invasion ecology, biostatistics, and introductory ecology and evolution. His lab studies local community ecology through investigations of the diets, predators, and population dynamics of feral cats, raccoons, opossums, box turtles, wood turtles, and diamondback terrapins. Current goals include improving the use of wildlife monitoring techniques that can work well in urban and suburban habitats, and including red cox and urban coyotes into studies of Long Island wildlife dynamics. See http://russelllburke.wix.com/labs.
Anthony Caragiulo is the Assistant Director of the Sackler Institute for Comparative Genomics at the American Museum of Natural History. His graduate work at Fordham University focused on the population and conservation genetics of pumas across. Anthony continues to lead projects examining the population genetics of large carnivores using non-invasive genetic techniques. Anthony has also been a mentor in the Science Research Mentoring Program at AMNH for the past six years, and his students are currently working on using environmental DNA to survey mammal communities in NYC Parks. He is also currently collaborating with researchers from Princeton's Canine Ancestry lab to investigate the hybrid ancestry of northeastern coyotes in NYC and Long Island
Christina Colόn is an Associate Professor at Kingsborough Community College where she also serves as the CSTEP Coordinator. Prior to joining the faculty at Kinsgsborough, Dr. Colon was an instructor at Columbia’s Center for Environmental Research and Conservation, an Education Curator at The New York Botanical Garden and Secondary Instructor at the Bronx Zoo. Colόn conducted her Masters' thesis on jaguars in Belize, and her doctoral dissertation on the Malay civet in Borneo. After years of active research in Asia studying palm civets, binturongs and sun bears, she has shifted to local species in an effort to involve her students in her research. She currently works with dozens of students each spring to study the breeding ecology of American horseshoe crabs in Jamaica Bay, and has begun to examine Gotham’s resident coyotes during the fall. Dr. Colόn currently lives in Manhattan where she was born. Prior to academia, she has worked as a zoo keeper, wildlife rehabilitator and travel writer.
Neil Duncan is the Collections Manager for the Department of Mammalogy at the American Museum of Natural History. He is responsible for the day to day operations of the department as well as implementing collections improvement projects. Before coming to the museum he worked in various parts of the country employed in different wildlife and fisheries jobs. One of his favorites was working as a biologist for the US Fish and Wildlife Service studying forest carnivores in Northern California. Since that time Neil has analyzed over 3000 scats and has been involved in diet studies of fishers, martens, fox and coyotes from localities around North America. Neil is currently leading our coyote diet research.
Pete Gallante is a Biodiversity Informatics Specialist in the Center for Biodiversity and Conservation in the Museum. I am interested in trends in animal and plant distribution and diversity. This means that I combine large datasets of plant and animal information with environmental data like climate to see patterns across landscapes. This involves sometimes mining data from old sources, or using state of the art satellite imagery. I am also interested in the ecology and natural history of the Northeastern US, including the plants and animals that live here.
Tatyana Graham is currently attending the Phorzheimer’s Honors College at Pace University, where she is majoring in Environmental Science and minoring in Sustainability. Mentored by Ferdie Yau, she began working with the Gotham Coyote Project in high school through the WERM program and SRMP program. Through this work, she fostered a strong interest in and a passion for Environmental Science. In college, she later went on to work with Dr. Anne Toomey on research focusing on the human dimensions of coyotes in the Bronx. Currently, Tatyana is researching nutrient pollution as it relates to combined sewer outfalls in Brooklyn’s Coney Island Creek.
Bobby Habig is an NSF Postdoctoral Fellow at Queens College and the American Museum of Natural History. His integrative research program encompasses evolutionary biology, urban ecology, and science education. To better elucidate patterns of biodiversity in the urban landscape of New York City, Bobby established the Bronx River Research Project at Queens College. The goal of this project is to investigate the underlying ecological and evolutionary processes that shape patterns of community composition in an urban context. He is presently mentoring four urban ecology graduate students. Bobby is broadly interested in antagonistic coevolution in an urban context – how competition, predation, parasitism, and mutualisms drive the reciprocal evolution of species
Carol Henger joins us after working as a primate keeper at the Wildlife Conservation Society's Bronx Zoo. During that time she completed her Master’s degree in Animal Behavior and Conservation. She is currently pursuing her doctorate at Fordham University where she is focused on learning how large mammals utilize highly urbanized landscapes. She is currently using genetic analysis and landscape modeling of coyotes in New York City to predict movement patterns and barriers to gene flow. The results of her work will provide us with a "family tree" of NYC coyotes.
Barry Kogan is the Senior Manager for Youth Programs and Woodland Initiatives at Wave Hill. He oversees two major internship programs for NYC teens - the Forest Project, a summer internship program for high school students, and the Woodland Ecology Research Mentorship program, an intensive 14-month program where high school students explore the restoration ecology of NYC’s natural areas and complete an authentic research project under the mentorship of a local scientist. Wave Hill and the Gotham Coyote Project partner to teach students about wildlife ecology, set up camera traps in Wave Hill’s woodlands and engage students in meaningful research.
Ivan Kuraev is a photographer living in NYC. Ivan is using specialized camera traps to photograph the City’s elusive coyotes and showcase their urban habitat. These cameras have produced an abundance of beautiful selfies taken by New York’s persistent attention hogs - raccoons. However, editing through all those raccoon photos has been worth it, because the cameras are also providing us with unique images of New York’s resident coyotes. Ivan is a contributing member of the Urban Coyote Initiative, a collective of photographers and filmmakers documenting the stories and science of North America’s urban coyotes. See more of Ivan’s work at www.ivankuraev.com and learn more about the Urban Coyote Initiative at www.urbancoyoteinitiative.com
Suzanne Macey is the manager of the Network of Conservation Educators and Practitioners (NCEP) and a Biodiversity Scientist at the Center for Biodiversity and Conservation (CBC) at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH). As the NCEP Manager, Suzanne leads the editorial processes for biodiversity conservation teaching and learning modules and the publication Lessons in Conservation. Suzanne's biological research currently includes studies focused on the behavioral ecology, health, and conservation genetics of endangered turtle species, the ecology of little blue penguins, and now coyotes! Suzanne earned a Ph.D. in Biology and a Graduate Certificate in Conservation Biology at Fordham University.
Brielle Manzolillo is a recent graduate from Pace University where she received her undergrad degree in Environmental Studies. She began working with the Gotham Coyote Project during her senior year at Pace. Her research focuses on human perceptions of urban coyotes in New York City. Currently, she is continuing this research and has future plans to attend graduate school to study Animal Behavior and Conservation.
Jason Munshi-South is an Associate Professor at Fordham University. He maintains a lab at the Louis Calder Center, Fordham's biological field station in Armonk, NY, and teaches graduate and undergraduate courses at Fordham's Rose Hill campus in the Bronx. His research group is dedicated to studying the ecology and evolution of urban wildlife. A particular focus of the lab is applying the latest population genomic techniques to understand how urban populations are adapting to cities.
Learn more at http://nycevolution.org/
Learn more at http://nycevolution.org/
Chris Nagy is the co-founder of Gotham Coyote and has worked in NYC as a wildlife biologist since 2001. His graduate work at Fordham University and CUNY focused on the population biology of eastern screech owls in NYC, and he has always been interested in learning how wildlife can make a living in an urban environment. He is currently Director of Research at the Mianus River Gorge in Westchester, NY Chris contributes his expertise in population and occupancy modeling as well as a thorough knowledge of NYC parks.
CN on ResearchGate
CN on ResearchGate
Ritika Nath is currently a Masters student at Queens College in the Department of Biology. She graduated from Queens College in 2018 with a Bachelors of Biology. Ritika is currently using camera traps along riparian corridors of the Bronx River to test how different features of the urban landscape impact mammalian species richness and community composition. Ritika is also interested in testing the role of coyotes as top predators in an urban ecosystem and whether their presence limits the distribution of feral cats, coyotes, opossums, striped skunks, and foxes.
Kristin Schaumberg is a lifelong resident of City Island in the Bronx. She graduated from Fordham University in 2007 with a Master of Science degree in Ecology. Her MS thesis was on avian community composition and nesting success among tidal marsh habitats in Connecticut. Kristin was a Wild Animal Keeper at the Bronx Zoo and currently works with Gotham Coyote monitoring coyote populations in Pelham Bay Park using camera traps.
Kristin also volunteers in the Ornithology Dept at the American Museum of Natural History.
Kristin also volunteers in the Ornithology Dept at the American Museum of Natural History.
Anne Toomey is a conservation social scientist who is interested in how people connect to their natural environment and the role of science in supporting that connection. She recently completed her PhD in Human Geography at Lancaster University, which sought to understand local perceptions of scientific research in the Bolivian Amazon. Previous to her doctorate she worked in community development and environmental sustainability in Nicaragua, Mexico and New York City. In 2009, together with Mark Weckel and Chris Nagy, she co-created the first study of coyotes in the metropolitan area, which would later become the Gotham Coyote Project. Anne is currently a professor of Environmental Studies at Pace University.
Ferdie Yau is a wildlife biologist with a MA in Conservation Biology from Columbia University and a Certified Professional Dog Trainer (CPDT-KA). Ferdie has studied jaguar in Belize, worked as an Ecological Project Manager for the City of New York, and trained a diversity of wildlife including polar bears, penguins, and river otters at the Wildlife Conservation Society’s Central Park Zoo. He started Sits & Wiggles Dog Training in 2011 and has connected with the Gotham Coyote Project to train dogs to detect coyote scat. In the summer, Ferdie mentors high school students at Wave Hill to study the behavior and movements of coyotes in NYC.
Mark Weckel is a Brooklyn born, Bronx and Manhattan educated, Queens resident, conservation scientist and co-founder of Gotham Coyote . He did his graduate work at Fordham University and the City University of New York where he worked on jaguar conservation and white-tailed deer management, respectively. Mark spent ten years managing forests and wildlife in suburban Westchester County where he developed a research-based mentoring program for high school students. Mark is currently the Assistant Director of Youth Initiatives at the American Museum of Natural History and a visiting scientist at the AMNH's Center for Biodiversity and Conservation.
Claudia Wultsch is a research fellow with the Bioinformatics Core Infrastructure Laboratory (CUNY Hunter College/Weill Cornell Medicine) and Panthera and an associated researcher with the Sackler Institute for Comparative Genomics at the American Museum of Natural History. I have a broad interest in ecology and conservation of carnivores occurring across fragmented and human-dominated landscapes. During the last 15 years, I have implemented and continue to drive forward a range of different research projects in the Americas, Europe, and Asia addressing ecology, conservation and health related questions focusing primarily on mammalian carnivores (e.g., jaguars, snow leopards, coyotes). I apply cutting-edge technologies and innovative research approaches in the field and laboratory to gather valuable information on wildlife species of conservation concern to ultimately improve conservation and management planning.