• Strive to foster a working environment in which every lab member feels valued and respected as both a person and a scientist.
• Recognize that inequities in science and society are pervasive, deep-rooted, and require continual work to be broken down.
• Support each other’s efforts to break down inequity, cultivate inclusivity, expand accessibility, and pursue justice.  
• Acknowledge the historical stewardship of indigenous people, including Yokuts and Miwok, over the land that UC Merced sits upon. 
• Endeavor to conduct research in close collaboration with local communities, wildlife management agencies, and landscape stewards to ensure that our work incorporates diverse perspectives and serves management outcomes.
• Follow our scientific passions within a team environment, encouraging creativity, open-mindedness, humility, enthusiasm, dialogue, and perseverance in the pursuit of rigorous and novel scientific findings.
• Prioritize work-life balance and recognize that we are the best versions of ourselves when we take enough time to switch off.

Probably rooted in my own inability to avoid eating candy, I’m fascinated by foraging behavior and its consequences for individuals, populations, and ecosystems. I strive to understand the aspects of foods that foragers focus on when they are deciding what to eat and to quantify the effects of those decisions on the animal’s health and nutrition, the growth of their populations, and their ecosystem-wide impact. Before starting the HERD Lab at UC Merced, I was an undergrad in Daniel Stouffer’s lab at the University of Canterbury, a graduate student in Robert Pringle and Andy Dobson’s labs at Princeton University, and a postdoc in Jordi Bascompte’s lab at Universitat Zurich. Outside of the office, I spend my time baking, gardening, and hoping the Minnesota Vikings won’t lose.

Sean is a doctoral student who researches behavioral ecology in the world’s largest communally-breeding bird, the Southern Ground-Hornbill Bucorvus leadbeateri. He plans to use spatial, genetic, and observational methods to understand the breeding and territorial behavior of this species at a center of its global abundance: Gorongosa National Park in Mozambique. Broadly, Sean seeks to understand how the group-living strategy functions in this threatened species with an eye towards its long-term conservation. Throughout his PhD, Sean is interested in using multidisciplinary approaches to solve pressing problems facing the field of ecosystem monitoring.

Prior to the HERD Lab, Sean studied the historical ecology of birds in the Los Angeles Basin, earning his Master’s in Avian Ecology at California State University, Los Angeles (2021-2023). Sean also served as a Curatorial Assistant at the Moore Laboratory of Zoology at Occidental College.  Sean worked for three years at the Field Museum in Chicago, redlisted amphibians for the IUCN, and in 2017 conducted agroecological surveys of smallholder farms in northern Tanzania as part of his Bachelor’s thesis in Interdisciplinary Studies at Wheaton College (IL).

When not in the lab, Sean leads custom bird walks , studiously takes notes on Brazilian reality TV, throws legendary jackfruit parties, and mentors people from historically underrepresented backgrounds who are pursuing graduate education. For more, please visit Sean’s website .

Hello! My name is Luca Kuziel (he/him/his) and I am interested in behavioral ecology and conservation biology. I graduated from Princeton University with a BA in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and a minor in Environmental Studies where I was a member of Rob Pringle’s lab. Here in the HERD Lab, I plan to study the mechanisms of herbivore competition and community reassembly using waterbuck and wildebeest in Mozambique’s Gorongosa National Park as a model system. Outside of work I enjoy hiking, watching Brazilian reality TV shows (to practice Portuguese of course), and volunteering in cave restoration.

I’m a 3rd year undergraduate at UC Merced, studying ecology and evolution. My academic interests include speciation, interactions between individual bird species, and paleoecology. Outside of academics, I enjoy reading, birding, nature photography and illustration.

Hey! I’m Chris Nguyen (he/him/his) and I am currently a molecular and cell biology undergraduate student at UC Merced! My main interest in research is analyzing data sets to gain meaningful insights from raw data to support decisions, find patterns, and extract valuable information to then present the information as easily digestible visuals. I am currently preparing to conduct research on these mythical-looking animals called pangolins and their diets here at the HERD lab. Some projects I am/will be working on are data analysis and visualization of the pangolin diet, a personal website, and a photography portfolio. When I am not drowning in the many projects I have set myself up for, I am actively participating in Northern California’s Vietnamese Student Association, shooting photos, learning how to code, and trying to not bot 4 in my TFT lobbies!

Well, if you haven’t HERD of me yet, you will shortly. Behavioral ecology seeks to understand the adaptive significance of specific animal behaviors, and my experience raising livestock fostered a fascination with the association between feeding behavior and animal growth. Growing up surrounded by animals, I often wondered about complex eating behaviors, animal hunting patterns, and their metabolism responding to their feed. It excites me to begin my journey in HERD Lab where I study how individual cattle and calf-cow pairs select foods in a natural Californian grassland, which is a project that reminds me of home and is expanding my knowledge of cattle behavior through new lab approaches. 

Hi! This is Selina, and I’m a third year ecology and evolutionary undergraduate at UC Merced. Working with animals, any types of animals, brings me a bunch of joy, and seeing how they interact with one another or with the environment definitely captures my fascination. I was working at a small-animal vet throughout summer, and HERD lab gives me an opportunity to gain experiences with bigger ones. I’m super excited to learn more about possible trends of the relationships between species here in HERD lab, as well as gaining knowledge of the plants and animals in the area that I’m spending my 4 years of undergraduate at! Outside of lab, I’m an officer of UCM Pre-Vet club, was the Vice-President for UCM dance club, and I also enjoy creative writing and writing music, playing instruments, sketching, learning new languages, and taking sunset pictures!

Passionate about Anurans, I am dedicated to studying the interactions between these complex (and adorable) creatures and their environment, as well as their relationships with other species. I am an undergrad student in LABVERT and the Guimarães lab at Universidade de São Paulo and am currently working on my undergrad thesis focused on the impacts of Eucalyptus spp. plantations on anuran trophic networks. Additionally, during my internship at the HERD lab, I intend to focus on anuran predator behaviour and prey selection. Outside of work, I enjoy spending time with my family and am in the band Unidos do Camaleão, where I play the rattle and the “Surdo de 3ª”.