Ryan Trimbath

Title: IB PhD Student
Dept/Program: Biology
Email: rjt34@zips.uakron.edu

Research

After graduating from OU, I spent the following years working as a field biologist enjoying many adventures working with turtles, trees and birds across the United States.  After five years of working on other people’s research projects I felt it was time to start my own!  I was offered (and accepted) an opportunity to attend graduate school at the University of Akron as a masters student in Biology supported by an Industrial Assistantship with the Summit Metro Parks.  As a field biologist this was a great experience as I was able to continue to work in the field on a variety of projects related to natural resource management in Northeast Ohio while also working on my thesis.  For my research I studied the role of exotic earthworms and white-tailed deer as drivers of biotic homogenization in forest plant communities.

I completed the M.S. program in the summer of 2014 and entered into the Integrated Biosciences PhD program at the University of Akron in the lab of Dr. Anne Wiley.  Inspired by my coursework and conversations during the M.S. program I have decided to explore new research interests. I am particularly interested in the ecology of individuals and the distribution/occurrence of individual resource specialists within generalist populations.  I will utilize stable isotope techniques to unlock hidden information about organisms and their relationships with the environment.  By combining contemporary specimens with those available in museum collections I plan to study long-term changes in animal populations.  I am excited for the adventures to come as they will find me in a completely new environment: The Lab!

Education

B.S. in Wildlife and Conservation Biology, Ohio University. M.S. Biology University of Akron