People

Current lab members and volunteers

Tim Davidson (PI)
Dr. Davidson studies marine ecology, conservation biology, and human impacts in the marine and aquatic environment. He received his BS in Environmental Science at Oregon State University, MS in Biology from the Oregon Institute of Marine Biology, and PhD in Environmental Sciences and Resources at Portland State University. Davidson also completed post-docs at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama and University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. When he is not exploring wetlands, reefs, or the intertidal, he enjoys surfing, travelling, and practicing Judo as an assistant instructor at the Sacramento State Judo Club.

Carla Cruz Medina (MS student)
Carla is investigating the impacts of invasive red swamp crayfish in freshwater ecosystems. She also is a research assistant for the Bushy Lake Restoration project and helps sample aquatic invertebrates and measure water quality at the lake. She received several university and outside scholarships including the prestigious CSU Trustees Award.

Jessica Nichols (MS student)
Jessica is interested in conservation biology, wildlife conservation, and fisheries management. She completed her BS in Biology from California State University San Marcos. Nichols is studying how wood-boring ecosystem engineers alter wood habitat structure and invertebrate community composition in the Florida mangroves. She currently works full time as an Environmental Scientists at the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Rebecca Pilakowksi (MS student)
Rebecca is an MS student interested in the impacts of plastic pollution in wetlands. She currently works at the California Department of Pesticide Regulation, Certification & Licensing Program.

Alivia De Luze (undergraduate researcher)
Alivia is a senior in the Ecology, Evolution, and Conservation concentration at Sacramento State. Her interests are in conservation ecology, natural resource conservation, and wildlife biology. She is currently conducting research investigating the impact of marine wood borers on introduced and native mangroves. She also helps measure water quality and sample aquatic organisms with the Bushy Lake restoration project. Her marine borer work was funded through the CSU COAST Undergraduate Research Support Program.

Volunteers & new research students:

Former lab members & volunteers at Sac State:

Sarah Albright (MS student)
Sarah graduated with an MS in Biological Sciences in Dec 2021. Her thesis was titled "Impacts of body size and water movement on fragmentation in three temperate estuarine algae." She received her B.S. (Honors) in Marine Biology from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, where she studied the nutrient uptake and partitioning of a green invasive alga on Oʻahu, Avrainvillea lacerata. Sarah also worked for NOAA's National Marine Sanctuaries, Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument as a scientific communications intern during her time in Hawaiʻi. Her Master’s thesis investigated the vegetative fragmentation and dispersal of algae in the San Francisco Bay. When she’s not working or adventuring along shorelines of the Pacific, she is doing science outreach and education, camping in the Sierra Nevada mountains, or writing fantasy novels and leading games of Dungeons and Dragons with her friends. She recently published a paper with Davidson investigating potential biotic resistance by urchins on invasive algae.

Cassandra Rodriguez (undergraduate researcher)
Cass completed her final semester at CSUS and now pursuing graduate school at UC Davis. Her primary interests are in Conservation Biology and Wildlife Conservation. She is a mother and an 8-year veteran with the United States Air Force, where she served as an Aerospace Medical Service Technician/EMT. Cass conducted a meta-analysis on the feeding and burrowing effects of the globally invasive species, Myocastor coypus (nutria) and received research funding through the CSUS COAST program and SEE program at CSUS.

Ethan Roberts (undergraduate researcher)
Ethan is a recent graduate of our EEC program (BS, 2020) and is now pursuing an MS at Sacramento State with the McDonald lab in biology education. He spent most of his undergraduate career working with Dr. Davidson to investigate how burrows formed by an invasive ecosystem engineer affect intertidal invertebrate communities in the San Francisco Bay. While much of his time is spent between school and research, Ethan moonlights as a science illustrator, portrait artist, jazz pianist, and piano instructor. Ethan received several research awards at CSUS including COAST awards and an NSM SURE project award.

Anthony Ziba (undergraduate researcher)
Anthony is a graduate of our evolution ecology and conservation program (BS) and an LSAMP Award recipient. He studied patterns of leaf herbivory and predation in Florida mangroves using field and lab experiments.

Other former volunteers/lab members:

Eric Weston - Helped sample water quality & aquatic macroinvertebrates with the Bushy Lake Restoration Project (2021)
Jane Simeon - Creating biological illustrations for an educational plant ecology game (2018-20)
Jenna Grossman - Studied the impacts of invasive marine algae (2019-20)
Catlinh Nguyen - Helped gather and compile data for a meta-analysis of invasive Nutria impacts (2020)
Alyson Bender - Researched methods to quantify microplastics & impacts (2020)
Erika Ornouski - Researched mangrove ecology connectivity (2020)
Jessica Agajan - Analyzed patterns of leaf herbivory in native and invasive mangroves (2019)
Danielle Nestler - Analyzed patterns of leaf herbivory in native and invasive mangroves (2017-2019)
Allyson Bricker - SURE Award recipient - investigated how ecosystem engineering isopods affect predation rate in the intertidal (2018-19)
David Boelen - MS student from OSU - studied the biogeography of marine wood boring crustaceans and mollusks (2018)
Aliyah Penn - Examined marine debris and plastic pollution abundances in the intertidal (2018)
Jonathan Semkiw - Examined marine debris and plastic pollution abundances in the intertidal (2018)

Lab members