• Pursue our scientific passions within a supportive team environment, encouraging creativity, open-mindedness, humility, enthusiasm, dialogue, and perseverance.
• Strive to foster a working environment in which every lab member feels valued and respected.
• Acknowledge the historical stewardship of indigenous people, the 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 help ensure that our work is useful.

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.

Hello! My name is Alejandro Ramos and I am a first year Ph.D. student. My research interests include behavioral and population ecology. I earned my BS from UC Davis in Wildlife, Fish, and Conservation Biology, with a minor in Environmental Policy Analysis and Planning. While at UC Davis I worked in the Rypel Lab conducting research with a focus on quantifying Chinook salmon habitat in the California Delta. In my spare time I enjoy connecting with nature through backpacking and hiking.

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.

Mufudzi joined the HERD Lab, as our field technician in Gorongosa National Park, in March 2026. Prior to joining the team, he completed an undergraduate degree in forestry, and his abilities in botany are invaluable to our work in Gorongosa. Currently, he is spearheading a dry-season-long project on the vegetation phenology, herbivore usage, and forage dynamics of the Urema floodplain in close collaboration with Miranda Hopper, a PhD student that Matt co-advises at Texas A&M University.

Hello, my name is Isaiah Corona, and I am a second year Biology major with an emphasis in Molecular and Cell Biology. My research interests have changed throughout the years and included many different topics such as my fascination with marine life, my interest in plant genetics, and general curiosity of how species interact. Of the many experiences that pushed me to study and research more, most of my experience stems from past volunteer experience at the Aquarium of the Pacific, guided tours about plant migration to Hawai’i, and influence from my father. To pass time outside of courses and work, I prefer to spend time with my family and snack while watching films, TV, or videos online.

Amanda is an undergraduate researcher in the lab working on seasonal variation in forage quality and availability for cattle in California’s Central Valley.