Member

Shannon was raised in Montgomery County, Maryland, but spent almost every weekend and school holiday break at her aunt’s horse farm in Prince George’s County, Maryland. After completing a year-long primate research project for the National Institutes of Health during high school, Shannon decided to extend her animal research skills and pursued a B.S. degree in Animal Science at Texas A&M University. There, she studied canid nutrition and dermatology in the Veterinary School’s Department of Pathobiology. She also was a member of the University’s NCAA equestrian team. To help pay university expenses, Shannon worked in the large and small animal ICU hospitals on campus. Although she enjoyed teaching 4th year veterinary students about emergency medicine techniques, she truly desired to break out of domesticated and laboratory animal medicine to research wildlife populations. After moving back near her family on the east coast, she pursued a Master’s degree at Virginia Tech focusing on human-wildlife conflict, specifically preparing Washington, DC residents for the newly arrived Eastern coyote. Her graduate advisor, Dr. David Trauger, encouraged participation in professional societies such as The Wildlife Society (TWS). Her networking and research presentation skills with TWS grew and she was hired to manage TWS’ certification and subunits’ programs. She thoroughly enjoyed traveling to chapter and section meetings around North America but was pleased to land an opportunity that paid her to pursue a PhD at the University of Maryland. Under dissertation advising by wildlife landscape ecologist Dr. Jennifer M. Mullinax, Shannon focused her PhD research on habitat variables important to dwindling cave bat populations trying to survive White-nose Syndrome (WNS). She has been teaching wildlife management and spatial analysis courses, some developed by urban wildlife biologist Dr. Lowell Adams, for UMD’s Environmental Science & Technology Department since 2015 and was recently promoted to Senior Lecturer. Shannon and her students currently are conducting bat surveys on Plummers Island. She lives a few miles from the island in Northern Virginia with her husband, 2 sons, 2 dogs, and 2 tortoises. Shannon also serves as a Cub Scout den leader, so don’t be surprised if you see her hiking along Potomac River trails with a gaggle of cub scouts or UMD students. Shannon was elected to membership in the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 2023.