I am a vertebrate biologist, an ecologist, and a conservation biologist. My research and teaching interests are within the intersection of animal ecology, behavioral ecology, and conservation biology. I seek to integrate behavioral approaches such as habitat preference and foraging ecology to understand local and regional factors that influence species distribution and community structure. I am also interested in studying the impacts of human-caused changes on biodiversity and urban ecology.I received a PhD in Biology from the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC, adviser: Joel S. Brown, Bruce Patterson, Field Museum of Natural History. grad. 2011). In my dissertation research, I looked at how habitat heterogeneity influences animal distribution, resource use, and coexistence in urban (Chicago) and natural (South Africa) environments. I also studied the structure of Egyptian small mammal assemblages through the diversity, distribution, and phenotypic attributes of coexisting species using an extensive, unanalyzed collection housed at the Field Museum. I have extensive experience in several empirical tools such as mark-recapture trapping, remote-sensing camera trapping, foraging at experimental food patches, GPS and VHF radio tracking, and GIS.Prior to the PhD, I received an MSc degree in Biological Sciences from the Jordan University of Science and Technology (Adviser, Dr. Zuhair Amr). I also worked as a fauna field researcher at the Royal Society for the Conservation of Nature (Amman, Jordan), where I conducted baseline surveys for mammals, reptiles and birds within nature reserves. I have a record of 40+ scientific papers on the ecology and natural history of the mammals and reptiles of Jordan, Syria, and South Africa with regional as well as international scientists from the US, Czech Republic, Germany, and Syria. I produced scientific illustrations, prepared museum specimens, cranial drawings, and photography.