Principal Investigator
Wenjing XU, Ph.D.
Wenjing is an assistant professor at UMass Amherst Department of Environmental Conservation. She is broadly interested in behavioral ecology, community ecology, and conservation science in social-ecological systems. From the western United States and East Africa to the Tibetan Plateau, she has worked in rangeland/grassland systems where humans share space with domestic and wild ungulates (hoofed mammals).
CONTACT
wenjingxu [at] umass.edu
Graduate Students
Xingyu DENG
Xingyu is a PhD student in the Organismic and Evolutionary Biology Program at UMass Amherst. Before his PhD, he spent four years working as a field ecologist on the Tibetan Plateau, focusing on wildlife monitoring and community-based conservation. His current research examines the ecological and human dimensions of human–wolf interactions. Specifically, he studies how wolves respond to human activity in shared landscapes, as well as how local communities perceive and respond to wolves. By integrating field ecology with social science, he aims to identify the ecological and social factors that shape human–wildlife coexistence across different cultural and management contexts.
CONTACT
xingyudeng [at] umass.edu
Yunfeng GE
Yunfeng is a PhD student in the Organismic and Evolutionary Biology Program. She is broadly interested in studying animal behavior and promoting human–wildlife coexistence in socio-ecological landscapes. Her current research focuses on investigating landscape functional connectivity for ungulates in rangeland systems in the US. By combining wildlife tracking data with social surveys, she aims to understand how wildlife responds to different land uses and barriers and to prioritize conservation actions to promote landscape connectivity. Outside of research, she enjoys birding, playing guitar, rock climbing, and playing soccer.
CONTACT
yunfengge [at] umass.edu
Meredith Burtt
Natural Resources Conservation w/ Wildlife Ecology and Conservation concentration
Interests: Mammal population dynamics, fire ecology, and habitat management.
Vidhika Tiwari
Computer Science & Psychology
Undergraduate Students
Ceana Tran
Computer Science & Math
Interests: the computational/analytical aspect of sociology, natural resources conservation, and economics.
Sonia Szala-Krotkov
Yihao Zhang
Biology, Mount Holyoke College
Interests: Animal movement, migration behavior, animal responses to changing environments.
Elsa Crotty
Affiliated lab members
Ning WANG
PhD student at Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, supervised by Dr. Lingyun Xiao.
Research keywords: species interaction, conservation strategies, ecosystem modeling.
Yi LU
PhD student at Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, supervised by Dr. Lingyun Xiao.
Research keywords: foraging ecology, nomadic pastoralism.
Wei-Wei(浪味仙)
Research associate
Interests: milk carton caps, aluminum foil balls, and other trash-like items. International travel when forced. Oh, right, she loves watching pigeons and tasting pigeon feces.
