People

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Nicolas W. R. Lapointe Principal Investigator nlapointe@gmail.com Nick has a BS in Environmental Science from Carleton University, and a MS in Biology from the University of Windsor. He is currently a doctoral candidate at Virginia Tech, and is conducting northern snakehead research as a part of his dissertation work. The remainder of his dissertation will focus on predicting future fish invaders in the eastern United States.

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John Odenkirk Research Associate/Advisor John.Odenkirk@dgif.virginia.gov John has a BS in Fisheries from VA Tech, and a MS in Fisheries from TN Tech. He worked with sturgeon and striped bass for the USFWS in Florida before returning home to manage a district for the VDGIF. Northern snakeheads landed in his lap in May 2004, and he has been investigating the introduction ever since.

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Paul L. Angermeier Co-Principal Investigator biota@vt.edu Paul has worked in the Virginia Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit as a US Geological Survey research scientist and Virginia Tech faculty member since 1988. His research interests span a wide range of topics in aquatic ecology and conservation, including biotic assessment of stream quality, ecology of rare species, regional conservation planning, ecological risk of invasive species, and relations between conservation and ecosystem services.

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Yan Jiao Co-Principal Investigator (helped in modeling snakehead invasion assessment) yjiao@vt.edu Yan is an Assistant Professor at the Virginia Tech. Her research has been interdisciplinary, involving fisheries biology, ecology, mathematical and statistical modeling, and computer simulations. She deals with the uncertainty inherent in data and models. Specifically, she models uncertainty and evaluates its influences on stock assessment and decision-making in fisheries management.

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Brian Murphy Co-Principal Investigator murphybr@vt.edu Brian received a B.S. degree from University of Detroit (Biological Sciences), an M.S. degree from Purdue University (Environmental Toxicology), and his PhD from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Fisheries Science). His research focuses on fisheries management questions both in the USA and abroad; much of it centers on solutions to overfishing, and the effects of introduced aquatic species. Brian is an Adjunct Professor with the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Hydrobiology in Wuhan, China, where he serves as co-investigator on a wide variety of projects dealing with various fisheries in the Yangtze River basin, particularly as related to the recently completed Three Gorges Dam.

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Ryan Saylor Research Associate gws_2001_pedro@hotmail.com "I was the first snakehead tech to brave the elements and possible attack with Nick Lapointe to describe the ecology of our introduced Channid friend. From 24 hour Antarctic tracking, to late night electrofishing :-), we were the first to document and record many observations on this non-native species. I'm currently a masters student, thesis track, at the University of West Florida, where I've continued to work with exotic species in Dr. Wayne Bennett's Eco-physiology lab. I attempted to work on the bullseye snakehead 1st (long story), but now I have Asian swamp eels to quanitfy the low temperature tolerance of this species and in order to model its dispersal ability. I plan on working with exotics species, perhaps into a PhD program, and owe many thanks to Nick and the fisheries biologists John Odenkirk and Steve Owens (VDGIF) for their support and experience with exotic species ecology."

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Andrew Gascho Landis Research Associate andrewmgl@gmail.com Andrew has a B.S. degree in Biology from Goshen College in northern Indiana and a M.S. degree in Forest Ecology from Northern Arizona University. Several years of employment at the Ohio State University Aquatic Ecology Lab exposed Andrew to the joys of working with populations of aquatic organisms. Upon arriving in Blacksburg, VA he sought out the snakehead crew at Virginia Tech and worked to help understand life history attributes of this newly introduced fish. Currently, he is working on his Ph.D. at Auburn University in the department of Fisheries and Allied Aquaculture.

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Robert Leaf Collaborator rleaf@vt.edu Robert has an M.S. in Marine Science from Moss Landing Marine Laboratories and a B.A. in Biology from the University of California at Santa Cruz and is currently a doctoral candidate at Virginia Tech where he is interested in fish population dynamics and simulation modeling. He is currently working with project investigators to assess population size of NS in the Potomac River. His dissertation work focuses on the evolutionary effects of fishing which he investigates with computer modeling and experimental manipulations of captive Japanese medaka.

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Eric J. Tobin Coauthor/Research Technician EricTobin09@gmail.com Background: Eric is a 2009 graduate of Virginia Tech with both a BS in Wildlife Science and a BS in Biology. He worked in several labs during his undergrad, getting involved in snakehead research in Fall of 2007. In Fall of 2008, he conducted research using Nick Lapointe's data. He is bound for a MS in Ecology at University of Louisiana at Lafayette to with Dr. Visser and Dr. Leberg.

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