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PhD Student, 2012-2017
Alexis M. Mychajliw
PhD Student, 2012-2017; Postdoctoral Fellow, La Brea Tar Pits; Postdoctoral Fellow, Hokkaido University; Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Oklahoma; Assistant Professor, Middlebury College
My dissertation research focused on the extinction and conservation of Caribbean mammals. I conducted field work in the Dominican Republic excavating Quaternary fossil localities and monitored populations of the endangered Hispaniolan Solenodon, a venomous mammal. I worked in partnership with the Museo Nacional de Historia Natural of Santo Domingo and the conservation NGO Grupo Jaragua. As a graduate student, I also taught two courses on bridging the science-policy gap on global change issues by using a place-based, community-engaged teaching strategy.
Following my graduation in 2017, I have focused on projects on Late Pleistocene paleoecology, conservation paleobiology, and historical ecology. I am particularly interested in how to bring paleontological and other geohistorical datasets into conservation decision-making in ways that are actually useful to and desired by stakeholders.
I am now an Assistant Professor in the Departments of Biology and Environmental Studies at Middlebury College, where I lead the HEDGE (Holocene ecology, diversity, and global extinctions) lab.