I am a conservation ecologist with multi-disciplinary research interests, including bat ecology, disease ecology, sociology, and behavioral psychology. My work seeks to answer two overarching questions: how do anthropogenic disturbances affect bat populations, and what social and behavioral factors drive these disturbances? As a doctoral student in the Kingston Lab, I investigated the drivers of bat hunting and bat meat consumption in rural communities across southern Nigeria, as well as the impacts of hunting and environmental gradients on the roosting ecology of the Egyptian fruit bat. To answer these questions, I employed tools from across disciplines – including the Theory of Planned Behavior, social network analyses, structural equation modeling, and advanced ecological modeling. This study identified differential hunting pressure as the major factor driving the redistribution of Egyptian fruit bat populations across the southern Nigeria landscape, and this formed the baseline for my current postdoctoral research. 

Now, as a Postdoctoral Scholar, I am working with Dr. Kingston and colleagues in the U.S. and Canada to study how free-ranging bats mediate the influence of hunting and other environmental pressures on viral communities – an integrative effort to better understand the ecology of zoonotic disease spillovers. 

My research is translational. I incorporate my findings into the design and implementation of effective community-based interventions that mitigate threats to small mammals while improving local livelihoods. I am the co-founder of the Small Mammal Conservation Organization (SMACON), a nonprofit dedicated to protecting small mammals and their habitats across West Africa. I am also passionate about capacity strengthening and have mentored more than 20 graduate and undergraduate students across the US and West Africa.