My lab currently focuses on four potentially overlapping themes:
Urbanization and wildlife conservation: The world is urbanizing at an unprecedented rate, with over 55% of the global population living in urban areas today. This percentage will continue to increase in the next decades, bringing new challenges for both human well-being and biodiversity conservation given the increase in the demand for natural resources. For the past years, I have studied drivers of demand for wild meat (i.e., meat from wildlife) in urban areas of the Amazon. I am expanding my work beyond meat consumption to understand the full range of wildlife use and its drivers across rural-urban gradients, including hunting, selling, and sharing wildlife and wildlife products.
Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in nature interactions: Direct interaction with natural environments brings health and well-being benefits to humans. These interactions foster a sense of connection to nature, resulting in positive attitudes and behaviors towards nature and concern for the environment. Given these health and conservation benefits, it is concerning that in the United States, Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) have lower rates of participation in nature-based activities, lower rates of access to nature, and higher rates of proximity to nature degradation. My research seeks to address these problems by studying access to nature, the drivers of engagement with nature, and by identifying priorities for increasing DEI in the outdoors.
Cross-cutting methods to assess sensitive behavior: Assessing wildlife consumption accurately through self-reporting remains a major challenge because such consumption is often illegal. My research seeks to test cutting-edge approaches on how to obtain accurate information on sensitive (e.g., illegal) behaviors while protecting research participants, such as randomized and non-randomized response techniques.
Wildlife trade and use: Direct harvesting of wildlife for human use is a major threat to target species across the globe. My research examines the patterns and mechanisms of wildlife use and strategies to change human behaviors to improve conservation of wildlife while safeguarding people’s wellbeing. In the Amazon, I have studied wildlife trade for >10 years. In the United States, I have joined the Collaborative to Combatting the Illegal Trade in Turtles, which is composed of people from federal and state agencies, universities, and NGOs. Within this Collaborative, I am part of the Human Dimensions Working Group to help finding solutions to the illegal turtle trade in the US and abroad.