Masters Student
Mia.Larrieu[at]colorado.edu
I’m most interested in the behavioral ecology and evolutionary biology of avian species in the face of climate change and rapid urbanization. In particular, I want to understand how organisms adapt and interact in response to anthropogenic changes to the environment, and how their offspring are affected by adaptive life history traits that arise. I earned my B.S. at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign with a degree in Integrative Biology and a Spanish minor. Since graduating, I’ve spent a few years as a field research technician on many projects, partnered with various universities, governmental agencies, and non-profits in both the US and Latin America. I have worked with a wide range of taxa, from tiny cave arthropods, to herps, birds, and small mammals, all the way up to Grey Wolves! Some of my field experience includes research on pika in the Pacific Northwest, Hispaniolan woodpecker behavior in the Dominican Republic, Spotted Owls and goshawks in the National Forests of California, hummingbirds in Panama, and songbird nesting ecology in central Illinois. Projects that focused on answering animal behavior and management questions were the ones that eventually sparked my interest to study avian behavior more closely and to ultimately use this knowledge to help conserve these species. I’ll be joining the Taylor Lab to work on the Boulder Chickadee Study, exploring the hybridization and behavior of Black-capped and Mountain chickadees.
