News

Savanna Science Network Meeting 2023

April 5, 2023

The Davies Lab was well represented at the Savanna Science Network Meeting in Kruger National Park, South Africa, 5 March 2023 – 10 March 2023! The Annual savanna research conference is hosted by South African National Parks (SANPArks) Scientific Services. The program and recorded sessions can be found...

Lucrecia Aguilar represented Harvard at the SACNAS National Diversity in STEM Conference in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

October 31, 2022

Lucrecia Aguilar, a PhD candidate in the Davies Lab, represented Harvard OEB at the 2022 Society for the Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS) National Diversity in STEM Conference in San Juan, Puerto Rico, October 27 – 29, 2022. "As the largest STEM diversity event in the USA, SACNAS provides an important opportunity for us to recruit students from diverse backgrounds to consider Harvard for grad school. We spoke with many amazing people, attended intersectional science talks, and learned about Puerto Rican culture!" - Lucrecia Aguilar

Evan Hockridge Awarded GCA Fellowship

April 21, 2022

Congratulations to PhD candidate Evan Hockridge, awarded The Garden Club of America Fellowship in Tropical Botany for his project, "Islands in the forest: Spatiotemporal patterns of ecosystem structure, composition, and function in Central African forest clearings."

Davies Lab Update

March 25, 2022

It has been a busy start to 2022 for the Davies Lab! In January and February, lab members travelled to Kenya to collect GPS and LiDAR data at Mpala Research Centre and the Selenkey Conservancy. In March, several members of the lab presented at the Savanah Science Network meeting in Kruger National Park, South Africa.

Savannah Science Network Meeting Presentations

Andrew Davies Spatial heterogeneity facilitates carnivore coexistence
Michael Voysey The role of browsers in maintaining...

Graduate Thesis Completed!

October 19, 2021

Congratulations to Davies Lab member Nisa Marks on the successful completion of her thesis, "Giving Life to Conservation: A Study of What Enables or Constrains Biologists' Work to Recover Endangered Birds". As a graduate student at the Harvard Extension School, Nisa's research in the lab focused on the effects of nonbiological factors on conservation outcomes, using threatened and endangered birds as case studies. She is currently working as the Rivers and Lakes Program Assistant, for the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services.

Field Expedition to Odzala-Kokoua National Park

September 29, 2021

PhD student Evan Hockridge recently led a field expedition to Odzala-Kokoua National Park in the Republic of Congo with Professor Andrew Davies and Tom Lautenbach (drone pilot and field technician). Evan's PhD seeks to understand the specific ways that large animals influence the structure and composition of Central African forests via ecosystem engineering and alterations to ecosystem functioning. Afrotropical rainforests are...

Davies Lab Undergraduate Featured in OEB Newsletter

September 17, 2021

Mushtaaq Ali ('21), a past undergraduate student in the Davies Lab is featured in the OEB 2020-2021 Annual Newsletter (see IB Student Spotlight, pg 19) ! As a member of the Davies Lab, she focused on her senior thesis: "The Impacts of Fire on Animal Path Abundance in South African Savannas". An Integrative Biology with a minor in Environmental Science and Public Policy, Mushtaaq is now a... Read more about Davies Lab Undergraduate Featured in OEB Newsletter

Paper Presentation at the Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR) Virtual 2021 Conference

June 25, 2021

Davies Lab graduate student Catherine Ressijac and Elizabeth Bondi of SEAS, presented their paper entitled, Preliminary Detection of Rhino Middens for Understanding Rhino Behavior at the Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (...

Harvard's Star-Friedman Challenge for Promising Scientific Research Award

May 21, 2021

Congratulations to Professor Andrew Davies and postdoctoral fellow Tyler Coverdale who were awarded Harvard's Star-Friedman Challenge for Promising Scientific Research for their proposal, “Anthropocene Savannas: The Future of Humans, Wildlife & Livestock". With support from the Star-Friedman Challenge, Davies & Coverdale plan to investigate the effects of rapidly changing herbivore communities in a Kenyan savanna using an ambitious combination of large-scale megaherbivore manipulations...

International Savanna Science Network Meeting

March 5, 2020

The Davies Lab attended and presented at the recent International Savanna Science Network Meeting, March 01-05, 2020 in Skukuza, South Africa.

Graduate Student Evan Hockridge presented a poster entitled "Using unoccupied aerial vehicles for animal ecology in savanna landscapes: a case for LiDAR, thermal, and electro-optical remote sensing." Professor Davies presented a talk entitled "Mound-building termites are resistant to...