Michael Gerringer Email & Phone Number

Cheyenne, Wyoming Area

Drone Program Lead and Project Manager. Drone-based research, wildlife and environmental surveys with a focus on the use of AI for automated target detection. Solar energy pre/post-construction monitoring project management. Avian detection technology research (e.g. radar), operation, and analysis.

Montana

Eagle curtailment, post-construction monitoring. Evaluation of new technologies including avian radar and other bird detections/surveillance technologies. Radar validation methods, operating avian radar hardware/software, ground-truthing eagles and other raptors for radar testing, radar data analysis, report writing, and training. Developed protocols for testing avian detection technologies.

Terre Haute, Indiana Area

My research focuses on the problem of bird strikes in aviation. My graduate work consisted of collaborative effort between Indiana State University, the USDA National Wildlife Research Center, and the National Center for Atmospheric Research to conduct an FAA ordered evaluation of the detection and tracking abilities of a commercially available avian radar system. As part of this project, I completed training for operating an avian radar system, completed training for operating radio-controlled aircraft, trained two radar technicians, and performed fixed-wing drone flights and avian ground-truth observations to test the detection and tracking capabilities of a commercially available avian radar system.

Columbus, Ohio Area

Studied the use of old growth forest habitat by Cerulean Warbler by comparing the density of warblers in old growth forest habitat to that of adjacent second growth forest habitat.Responsibilities included finding suitable studies sites across three states, working with county, state, and federal biologists to gain access to the study sites, and performing transect surveys and extensive vegetation surveys at each site. I was also involved in the primary Cerulean Warbler project in Ohio concerning the effects of timber harvest upon the nesting success of Cerulean Warblers and other canopy nesting species. My responsibilities for this project included nest searching, point counts, spring arrival surveys, spot mapping, territory mapping, nestling provisioning observations, re-sighting color banded birds, conducting adult foraging observations, and extensive vegetation surveys.

Dayton, Ohio Area

Studied the cooperative searching and hunting behavior of the Harris' Hawk with applications to cooperative control algorithms for multiple unmanned systems. Responsible for grant writing, extensive literature searches, interacting with aerospace engineers, ornithologists, and biologists at the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum, and using data from interviews and research papers to develop an ethogram summarizing/characterizing the cooperative hunting behaviors of the Harris' Hawk.

Columbus, Ohio Area

Studied the effects of timber harvest upon the nesting success of the Cerulean Warbler and other canopy nesting species. Responsibilities included spring arrival surveys, nest searching for canopy nesting songbirds, monitoring nests at 15 different research sites, nestling provisioning observations, territory mapping, point count surveys, spot mapping, transect surveys, target netting, re-sighting color banded birds, and extensive vegetation sampling of trees, saplings, and shrubs in mature oak-hickory forests and similar shelterwood habitats.

Swan Quarter, North Carolina

Studied the winter ecology of the Coastal Plain Swamp Sparrow and collected data used to study the allopatric speciation of Coastal Plain and Inland Swamp Sparrows.Responsibilities included mist netting, banding/color banding, aging and sexing sparrows, radio tracking sparrow and use of GPS, feather collection for stable isotope analysis, behavioral field observations, male dominance trials, diet and fecal sample extraction, identification of stomach contents, and mist nest repair.

Ithaca, New York Area

Aided in managing data and assisting citizen scientists with their data entry for the citizen science program called "The Birdhouse Network."

Ithaca, New York Area

Studied the utilization and significance of feathers as nest lining in Tree Swallow reproduction and helped with several ongoing projects.Responsibilities included conducting foraging observations, identifying insects from the stomach contents of Tree Swallows, monitoring hundreds of nest boxes at multiple research sites, banding, measuring, aging, and sexing Tree Swallows, and collecting blood, diet, and fecal samples.

Rochester, New York Area

I volunteered as a bird bander at Braddock Bay Bird Observatory numerous times between the dates listed above.Responsibilities included mist netting, and identifying, banding, measuring, aging, and sexing birds.

Ithaca, New York Area

I took an intensive field methods course in ornithology in which 4 instructors, each experts in their fields, taught myself and 2 other students a variety of field methods used in ornithological research.In this course I learned how to mist nest, how to band, measure, age, and sex birds, how to collect blood samples from birds, nest searching and monitoring techniques, how to mark, map, and relocate nests using GPS, how to conduct a point count study, how to relocate color-banded birds using vocalization recordings among other techniques, and data entry, analysis, and statistics methods.Each student conducted two independent research projects and aided the other two students in collecting data for their projects. My independent projects were (i) a nesting success/predation rate study and (ii) a Tree Swallow nest insulation study. My projects required the use of i-botton temperature loggers to record incubation patterns and the use of Raven, a bioacoustic analysis program.

Cedarville, Ohio

Studied the influence of plowing, burning, and seeding upon the species richness of a tall grass prairie community to determine the best solution for restoring tall grass prairie habitat in southwest Ohio, and determining plant preferences fo wild bird species within the prairie habitat.Responsibilities included setting up transects throughout the prairie, quadrant sampling, identification of prairie species, point count surveys for birds, establishing a nest box trail, monitoring the nesting success of breeding Eastern Bluebirds and Tree Swallows, and data management.

Cedarville, Ohio

Primary responsibilities include preparing lab materials for indoor labs and field labs, and aiding in field labs.

Ithaca, New York Area

During the summer months of 2004 and 2005 I worked as a nestbox cam archivist-intern at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.My responsibilities included identifying images of nesting birds from the Cornell Lab nest cams which documented interesting and biologically important breeding behavior, assisting in researching and producing the descriptive commentary which accompanies the nest cam website, and updating the nest cam web pages for several bird species using multimedia editing software.

Master'S Degree, Biology, 4.0

Activities and Societies: Cornell Lab of Ornithology, The American Ornithologist Union, Raptor Research Foundation, The Association.

Bachelor Of Arts (B.A.), Biology