Dr. Ashley Dayer (she/her)
Associate Professor
Dr. Dayer is an Associate Professor of Human Dimensions in the Department of Fish and Wildlife Conservation at Virginia Tech. She teaches an undergraduate/graduate level course in Human Dimensions of Fish and Wildlife Conservation and is a Global Change Center affiliated faculty member. Her research program focuses on social science applied to wildlife, particularly bird, conservation. She is interested in how and why people impact wildlife and their conservation and, in turn, how wildlife impact human emotions and well-being {more info}.
Katie Krafte Holland, PhD (she/her)
Research Scientist
Dr. Katie Krafte Holland is a conservation social scientist and Research Scientist at Virginia Tech. Katie joined the Dayer Lab after spending 4 years as a faculty member at the University of North Carolina Wilmington in the Environmental Science department. As a researcher, Katie focuses on human dimensions of conservation including protected area management, community engagement in conservation, human-wildlife interactions, and strategic conservation planning. {more info}.
Kelley Langhans (she/her)
Dayer Lab Assistant Director Postdoctoral Associate
Kelley is an interdisciplinary conservation scientist, with a focus on urban ecology, ornithology, access to nature, justice, and human dimensions. She obtained her PhD from Stanford’s Department of Biology, where she studied conservation in human-impacted landscapes and how preserving ecosystems can benefit both people and biodiversity. Kelley has engaged with government, NGOs, and communities to solve environmental problems, from reforestation policy in Costa Rica to access to nature in community gardens in San Francisco, CA. Her work centers research that has a concrete practical outcome, and considers people and issues of equity as an integral part of conservation {more info}.
Nathan Thayer (he/him)
Postdoctoral Associate
Nathan Thayer is a Human Geographer and a postdoctoral associate in the Dayer Human Dimensions lab in the Department of Fish and Wildlife Conservation at Virginia Tech. Nathan earned a Ph.D. in Geography at the University of Delaware in 2023. Nathan’s research focuses on the diverse ways caring relations and ethics are entangled with contemporary antiracist struggles in the United States. His dissertation research focused on care in three arenas {more info}.
Freya McGregor (she/her)
Research Associate
Freya McGregor, OTR/L, CIG is an occupational therapist and the owner of the consulting and training business Access Birding. With a clinical background in blindness and low vision services, her own experiences as a disabled birder, and her passion for social justice, she works to create a more accessible and inclusive birding community and the outdoors, particularly for disabled birders. In the Dayer Lab, she is involved in projects related to disability, birding, access, inclusion and using birding as a therapeutic tool {more info}.
Kelsey Jennings (she/they)
Ph.D. Student
Kelsey is a PhD student in the Dayer Human Dimensions Lab, where their research interests lie in understanding how people are motivated and encouraged to conserve natural resources and wildlife, as well as how to make conservation more equitable and sustainable. In her current project, she works with Audubon and the US Forest Service to explore sustainable maple syrup production, focusing on how to incentivize sugarbush management to support bird conservation {more info}.
Sami Livingston (she/her)
Ph.D. Student
Sami is a Ph.D. student in the Dayer Human Dimensions Lab and pursuing a degree in Fisheries and Wildlife Sciences. She is working on a collaborative project to prevent human disturbance of shorebirds along the Atlantic Flyway. She is supporting staff from Audubon, Manomet, and USFWS to implement community-based social marketing campaigns across the Flyway {more info}.
Reyhane Rastgoo (She/Her)
Ph.D. Student
Reyhane Rastgoo is a Ph.D. student at the Dayer Human Dimensions Lab in the Department of Fish and Wildlife Conservation at Virginia Tech. Reyhane holds a bachelor’s degree in Environmental Science and pursued a master’s in Biodiversity Conservation and Management at the University of Tehran in Iran. During her exploration for her master’s thesis, she discovered a captivating intersection between conservation and social science, leading her to delve deeper into the realm of human-wildlife interactions and the human dimensions of wildlife {more info}.
Pratik Bhattarai (he/him)
M.S. Student
Pratik is a graduate student at the Dayer Human Dimensions lab in the Department of Fish and Wildlife Conservation at Virginia Tech. He is originally from Nepal, and most of his work has focused on small mammals and endangered red pandas in the Himalayas. His research interests include Wildlife Conservation and Management, Human dimensions of Conservation, Ecotourism, Natural Resource Economics, Parks and Protected Areas {more info}.
Jordan Mouton (they/them)
M.S. Student
Jordan Mouton is a student in the Dayer Human Dimensions lab with a background in avian ecology and conservation. Their interest in human dimensions research began during their undergraduate education with Louisiana State University’s Department of Renewable Natural Resources. Their work experience includes field seasons with the National Audubon Society, the Carnegie Institute’s Powdermill Avian Research Center, and the University of Georgia. {more info}.