Interim Director & Associate Professor
Eli's area of study is bird behavior and migration, and he often engages in the development of new methods and technologies to do so.
Email: ebridge@ou.edu
Heritage Botanist
Amy surveys the state for rare and invasive plants. She conducts floristic inventorys across Oklahoma including Registered Natural Areas, The Nature Conservancy preserves, State Wildlife Management Areas, and National Forests. She is also the Collections Manager in the Bebb Herbarium.
Email: amybuthod@ou.edu
Heritage Ecologist
Coordinator ONHI
Priscilla coordinates the Oklahoma Natural Heritage Inventory. She is currently studying native plant restoration, pollinator habitat improvements, and Monarch butterfly migration and reproduction in Oklahoma.
Email: prill@ou.edu
Heritage Zoologist
Owen is a herpetologist, with a focus on frogs and turtles.
Email: OwenEdwards@ou.edu
Assistant Professor & Heritage Zoologist
James is a community ecologist studying pollinator diversity and conservation, with a focus on bees. He also studies pollination biology and climate change.
Email: KLJHung@ou.edu
Associate Professor
Curator, Bebb Herbarium
Abigail studies plant evolution using DNA sequence data, with a focus on how plants adapt to their current habitats and switch between habitats. She is also the herbarium curator and am interested in floristics and taxonomy.
Email: abigail.j.moore@ou.edu
Associate Professor & Heritage Zoologist
Area of Study: Winter grassland bird movement ecology and conservation. Creating sustainable landscapes. Severe weather ecology
Email: rossjd@ou.edu
Professor & Heritage Biologist
Retired January 2024
Liz's research interests are in the ecology and conservation biology of land snails, freshwater macroinvertebrates, and algae.
Email: lbergey@ou.edu
George Lynn Cross Research Professor & Presidential Professor
Retired May 2025
Caryn's research focuses on the ecology and conservation biology of streams, in particular the functional roles of freshwater mussels, and in quantifying the ecosystem services provided by stream organisms. Over 3000 of Caryn's lab specimens are now hosted at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History.
Email: cvaughn@ou.edu
Postdoctoral Researcher
Justin's research focuses on understanding how food and nutrition structure species interactions, especially in the context of plant-pollinator interactions
Email: jbain@ou.edu
PI: Eli Bridge
Daniel's research will focus on bird migration patterns using data from a variety of sensors, such as weather radars and moonwatching
Email: dmgomez@ou.edu
PI: Jeremy Ross
Luis focuses his research on two regions, the tropical Andes and the system: American grassland and the Arctic tundra. He studies the genetic responses to climatic gradients and the phylogeographic path that led birds to their current distributions.
Email: l.cueto@ou.edu
PI: James Hung
Izzy is a graduate of Oklahoma State University. At OBS, she surveys bumble bees and native pollinators throughout our state.
Email: isabelle.s.gonzales-1@ou.edu
PI: Abigail Moore
Marisa's current doctoral work is on the phylogenomics and taxonomy of Heterotheca (Asteraceae: Astereae) while her Masters work is focused on the Euthamia (Asteraceae: Astereae) and broader North American Astereae relationships as a whole.
Email: marisabszubryt@ou.edu
PI: James Hung
Ben is interested in native bee community ecology and conservation biology. His current research focuses on the influence of grazingland management on pollinator diversity.
Email: benturnley@ou.edu
PI: James Hung
Jackson is interested in insect conservation in general, and is particularly intrigued by ant biogeography and parasites/parasitoids of solitary bees. His research focuses on arthropods of Oklahoma's sand dunes.
Email: jackson.t.wingert-1@ou.edu
PI: James Hung
Sam is an ecologist who enjoys working with plants, pollinators, and interactions between these two fascinating groups! He has worked for a variety of government institutions on the ecology and management of various insect taxa. He recently completed his MSc degree at San Diego Sate University, where he studied seasonal patterns of plant-pollinator interaction networks.
Email: sodell@ou.edu
PI: James Hung
Jasmine is interested in native bee community ecology and pollinator conservation. Her current research focuses on the use of roadsides as pollinator habitat and how management of roadsides and surrounding landscapes influences native bee diversity.
Email: Jasmine.A.Cates-1@ou.edu
Research and Admin Assistant
Supervisor: Priscilla Crawford
Sami finished his undergraduate degree at OU in May 2025. Now he works on the Oklahoma Biological Survey's monarch and milkweed projects doing data analysis and field work.
Email: samiksha.santhanaraj@ou.edu
PI: Abigail Moore
Elizabeth is a Herbarium Assistant in the Robert Bebb Herbarium.
Email: ebauerly@ou.edu
PI: James Hung
Email: isabella.m.encapera-1@ou.edu
PI: Priscilla Crawford
Julia is a research assistant in the Monarchs and Milkweed lab. Julia's focus is on wildlife conservation and field biology.
Email: julia.n.fellows@ou.edu
PI: Abigail Moore
Email: lenajurik@ou.edu
Lena studies how invasive plant populations change over time and the applicability of herbaria data to this area of study.
PI: Priscilla Crawford
Illiyana is the Data Analyst for the Oklahoma Natural Heritage Inventory, and she helps to report information on endangered species in Oklahoma.
Email: illyferg@ou.edu
MS 2025; PI: Abigail Moore
Heidi continues to work with Dr. Moore's Lab.
PhD 2025; PI: Caryn Vaughn
Alex copmleted his work on the uses of innovative genomic and 3D morphometric methods to study diversification and shell morphology evolution to a group of mussels that contain endangered species and cryptic diversity.
MS, 2025; PI: Eli Bridge
Abigail studied the subtle effects that heavy metal pollution can have on cognition and other health biomarkers in birds. Her research interests are ecotoxicology, ornithology, and behavioral ecology.
Email: triemstra@ou.edu
PhD, 2024; PI: Eli Bridge
Elizabeth graduated and now works at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
MS 2024; PI: Abigail Moore
Leann studied how Dryadoideae, a submemeber of the Rose family, have evolved through fossil record analysis and genomic sequencing.
MS 2024; PI: Lara Souza & James Hung
Lauren Rosenfelt is a freelance natural science illustrator and serves as the Lake Thunderbird State Park Naturalist.
MS 2023; PI: Abigail Moore
Teraye studied the comparison of microbiomes of herbarium and silica-dried leaves of Grindelia ciliata.
BS; 2023; PI: Priscilla Crawford & Lara Souza
PhD 2023; PI: Eli Bridge
William studied ecology and conservation of salt marsh birds; wintering ecology of birds; migration ecology; behavioral landscape ecology.
PhD 2023; PI: Jeremy Ross & Eli Bridge
Meelyn studied how noise and climate change affect avian behavior. Currently, Meelyn is working as a Cloud Developer for Cellular Tracking Technologies developing the Terra, a smart-automated recording device to identify bird songs in people's backyards.
