Amanda Lyons Email & Phone Number

Wildwood, Nj, Us

Stone Harbor, New Jersey, United States

Core responsibilities of this position included: Mentoring and supervising 5-6 undergraduate research interns each summer as they conducted independent projects on diamondback terrapins, coastal birds, horseshoe crabs, Cope’s gray tree frogs, and salt marsh plant species. This included direct support for project design, data collection, data visualization, spatial data analysis, and statistics;Conducting training workshops on ArcGIS Online, grant proposal writing, social media and science communication; providing one-on-one instruction on JMP statistical software, R programming, ArcMap, and ArcGIS Pro;Conducting diamondback terrapin radio telemetry data analysis and manuscript development;Designing salt pool monitoring protocol to obtain baseline data on water quality, habitat complexity, and biological community composition before marsh enhancement through beneficial re-use of dredged material;Managing routine diamondback terrapin mark-release recapture and nest protection, coordinating treatment or transport of injured animals, performing and teaching necropsy of roadkilled terrapins as well as protocols for incubation of eggs removed from roadkilled female terrapins;Scheduling, coordinating, training, and managing terrapin nest monitor volunteers, instituting improved volunteer hours tracking process for research department;Leading horseshoe crab spawning surveys for researchers and volunteers, and leading public education walks rescuing horseshoe crabs for reTURN the Favor initiative;Monitoring salt marsh and dune system vegetation, elevation, and soil plots;Teaching classes on beach profiling, seining, water chemistry, and diamondback terrapin conservation in partnership with Rowan College of South Jersey;Reviewing applications, conducting interviews, and organizing hiring of research interns;Providing technical support on research projects across the research and conservation department.

Stone Harbor, New Jersey, United States

Conducted radio telemetry research on diamondback terrapins using a passive receiver node grid to triangulate animal locations. This project required: developing R code to manage and interpret large radio telemetry datasets, dynamically accounting for varying deployment times and changes to the receiver grid; classifying habitat using multispectral imagery; and analyzing terrapin movements and habitat selection using kernel density estimation.Conducted horseshoe crab research project interpreting data collected by citizen scientist horseshoe crab rescue initiative. This project required extensive data cleaning and quality control and culminated in the development of an ArcGIS web application to visualize, spatially and temporally, the results of horseshoe crab rescues over the past several years.Other responsibilities included: leading public releases of head-started diamondback terrapins (rescued as eggs from road-killed females and raised for a year in captivity) as part of a long-term outreach program; conducting day-to-day turtle husbandry and terrapin conservation tasks; tagging migrating monarch butterflies as a Monarch Ambassador; assisting with box turtle and gray tree frog surveys; and setting up ArcGIS Online for the organization.

Stone Harbor, New Jersey, United States

Collected muscle tissue samples from roadkilled terrapins for genetic analysis, while also performing routine diamondback terrapin program tasks including mark-recapture of nesting terrapins, husbandry of captive animals, terrapin nest monitoring and nest protection via the installation of predator exclosures, road patrols to quantify terrapin road mortality and rescue live terrapins crossing the road, removal of viable eggs from roadkilled terrapins, and cleaning and humidity checks for salvaged eggs; assisted with coastal bird and box turtle surveys.

Stone Harbor, New Jersey, United States

Designed and executed an independent project comparing the use of a fyke net vs. modified commercial crab traps to capture diamondback terrapins in tidal creeks as part of a larger, ongoing mark-recapture program; presented results at the 2018 CCRP Intern Symposium and 2018 Mid-Atlantic Diamondback Terrapin Working Group conference; participated in turtle releases and outreach events such as the Sara the Turtle Festival to teach the public about diamondback terrapins and their contributions to salt marsh ecosystem dynamics; conducted day-to-day terrapin husbandry and terrapin conservation tasks; assisted with coastal bird surveys.

Master Of Science - Ms, Ecology And Evolutionary Biology

Developed Master's thesis project analyzing diamondback terrapin population genetics throughout the northeastern U.S. from Cape May, NJ.

Bachelor Of Science - Bs, Ecology And Evolutionary Biology

Activities and Societies: Brown University Shotokan Karate (1st dan, president/vice president 2018-2020, instructed classes once/week.