PRIMES (PRogram for Interdisciplinary Mathematics, Ecology, and Statistics) is designed to address the challenges of studying complex ecological systems. Modern studies of ecological systems incorporate an extremely wide range of scientific and quantitative techniques, from the collection of data in the field, to the modeling of complex systems, to the application of advanced computational techniques. Consequently, quantitative ecology has become an inherently multi-disciplinary activity. Read More

2001 - BA in Mathematics and Music from Concordia College, Moorhead, MN

2004 - MS in Statistics from Montana State University, Bozeman, MT

My current research is supported by the National Park Service.  I was on PRIMES support last spring, and will be back on PRIMES support next academic year.  Last semester and the previous summer, I was supported by STARMAP.

I am currently working on a project for the National Park Service which aims to develop an automated process that will segment and classify sound waves.  The data are sound recordings from Yellowstone National Park.  One goal of the project is to determine the proportion of man-made sound heard in the park, e.g. helicopters, snowmobiles, jets.  I would like to generalize the problem to higher dimensional data and to other applications.  As part of the National Park Service support, I will also soon be working on statistical methods to detect sources of air pollution in the national parks.  My co-advisors are Hari Iyer and Richard Davis.