The Chincoteague Oystercatcher Project
The Team
Lyn Brown
Lead Researcher, Ph.D. Student
Lyn is a Virginia native and beach lover at heart committed to preserving Virginia's coastal ecosystems. As a Ph.D. student at Trent University, she is investigating causes for the population decline of American Oystercatchers at Chincoteague, Virginia. Lyn has worked on coastal waterbird research along the Atlantic Coast including loons in Wisconsin, scrub jays in Florida, and beach nesting birds in Virginia and North Carolina. In her spare time, Lyn goes adventuring, kayaking, picnicking, and swimming.
Edie Levine-Barnoff
M.Sc. Student
Edie is currently doing an honors thesis with us focused on the historical drivers of nest survival for Piping Plovers at Assateague Island. She will be staying on as a M.Sc. student for the parking lot relocation project. Edie has discovered the joy of the local Chincoteague library, which sits right on the bay. If she's not at the library, you can probably find her at the Island Creamery eating some homemade salt marsh ice cream.
Swati Banerjee
Honor's Thesis Student
Swati's honors thesis focuses on developing a population viability analysis for American Oystercatchers to understand how the parking lot relocation might affect them. Swati is frequently found “herping” (searching for and befriending reptiles including Fowler’s toads, black rat snakes, and tree frogs).
Trevor MacLaurin
M.Sc. Student
Trevor's M.Sc. thesis explored drivers of migratory behavior of American Oystercatchers, home ranges of American Oystercatchers throughout their annual cycle, and phenology of nesting for American Oystercatchers and Piping Plovers. His honors thesis researched nest site selection in relation to vegetation encroachment. Trevor can’t get enough of birds. When Trevor is not working with birds, he is frequently out in the forest prowling for owls and scanning the horizon for rare migrants to maintain his top local ranking status on eBird.
Alumni
Erica Nol
Supervisor
Erica Nol, Professor Emeritus at Trent University, supervised Lyn and Trevor's graduate theses. Erica conducted foundational research on the species in the 1980s. She has supervised dozens of graduate students on shorebird research around the world with a focus in the Canadian Arctic. For more information on her research check out https://avianconservation.ca/.
Autumn Watkinson
Supervisor
Autumn Watkinson, Full Professor, is supervising Edie's M.Sc. thesis. Autumn’s research specializes in restoration ecology. Previously her Ph.D. thesis focused on restoring grassland habitat for federally endangered Greater Sage Grouse in Alberta, Canada. For more information about her research visit https://www.watkinsonlab.com/.
Thanks to our partners
Duc-Man Decoys
This research is funded by
