Principal Investigator
Cole Burton
Dr. Cole Burton is an Associate Professor in the Department of Forest Resources Management, Canada Research Chair (Tier 2) in Terrestrial Mammal Conservation, and the Principal Investigator of the WildCo Lab. Cole has worked collaboratively with governments, industries, ENGOs, and academics in Canada and around the world. He has an M.Sc. in Zoology from UBC and a Ph.D. in Environmental Science, Policy and Management from the University of California, Berkeley. Cole’s research is motivated by the challenge of human-wildlife coexistence on a crowded planet and he specializes in studying terrestrial mammal responses to changing environments using innovative methods such as camera traps and hierarchical modelling.
PhD Students
Tazarve Gharajehdaghipoor
Taz started her PhD in 2020. Her research seeks to understand the extent of bottom-up and top-down effects of forest harvesting and natural disturbances on the rapidly declining Itcha Ilgachuz caribou herd. Taz completed her M.Sc. in Wildlife Ecology at the University of Manitoba, and earned her B.Sc. in Biology from McGill University.
Prior to joining WildCo she worked with Panthera conducting camera trap surveys for Critically Endangered Indochinese leopards in remote Cambodia. She has also worked as a Data Analyst on several projects on radio-collared black-backed and golden jackals for the Wildlife Conservation Research Unit (University of Oxford), and with the migratory landbird monitoring program in Alberta oil sands for the Canadian Wildlife Service.
Focal Project Location: Itcha-Illgachuz / Chilcotin Plateau
Murat Ersalman
Murat joined the WildCo Lab in May 2025 for his PhD. His research interests center on the development and application of hierarchical statistical models and data integration techniques to investigate species-habitat relationships and demographic processes. He holds an M.Sc. in Biomathematics from the University of Helsinki, where his thesis focused on developing a Bayesian integrated population model for the Baltic ringed seal to assess the effects of environmental and anthropogenic drivers on demography and behavior.
Before transitioning to ecological research in his master’s, Murat earned a B.S.E. in Industrial and Operations Engineering from the University of Michigan and worked as a financial modeler at Kroll.
Erin Tattersall
Erin Tattersall originally joined the WildCo Lab as a MSc student in January 2017 and returned as a PhD student in May 2022. Her PhD work explores the intersection of Western scientific and Indigenous sovereignty priorities within the Northwest Territories Biodiversity Monitoring Program, a collaborative initiative aimed at enhancing wildlife data collection across the territory.
Her research focuses on two main themes: 1) Indigenous Data Sovereignty (IDS, or the authority of Indigenous Peoples to govern data according to their own laws and protocols) in collaborative monitoring, and 2) applications of wildlife data that support Indigenous stewardship priorities, namely the conservation of wildlife valued as cultural keystone species or as food sources. Erin lives in Nelson, BC, on the unceded, traditional and ancestral territory of the Sinixt, Ktunaxa, and the Syilx Peoples.
Focal Project Location: Northwest Territories (Various Locations)
Larissa Thelin
Larissa Thelin recently joined WildCo Lab as a PhD student in Sep 2025. As a spatial ecologist, her research interest involves investigating shifting species or habitat distributions due to a changing climate. Her masters work at the University of Alberta investigated how melting sea ice conditions influenced the spatial overlap between polar bears and harp seals. Larissa is also passionate about science communication. She completed her MSc in 2022 and since then has worked for Polar Bears International teaching the public about climate change impacts on polar bears. She also writes for the Arctic Research Foundation about the changing Arctic. She is excited to refocus her research efforts towards the impacts of a changing environment on mammal species within her home province of BC.
Focal Project Location: Garibaldi Lake Provincial Park
Master’s Students
Ali Dimitriou
Ali joined WildCo in June 2023. Her Masters research focuses on the effects of recreation on mammal diversity and behaviour in Mount Robson, Joffre Lakes and Garibaldi Provincial Parks. Through her research in collaboration with BC Parks, she aims to use camera trap surveys during and after major trail closures (e.g. COVID-19 and natural disasters) to better understand how recreational activities impact wildlife communities. The goal of this research is to inform adaptive management in protected areas to facilitate coexistence in shared landscapes. Prior to WildCo, she worked in insect ecology and Andean bear conservation research, and as a BC Parks Student Ranger in Mount Robson.
Focal Project Location: Mount Robson Provincial Park, Garibaldi Provincial Park, Joffre Lakes Provincial Park
Zoe Konanz
Zoe started her MSc in the WildCo Lab in September 2024 but began working as a Research Assistant in her undergrad in 2021. During her time working for WildCo as a staff member, Zoe helped process images and assisted with fieldwork for a variety of projects in the lab, but primarily focused her efforts on the Itcha Ilgachuz Caribou project. During this time, she also completed a directed study involving estimating the density of feral horses in one of the Itcha grids using mark-recapture methods and natural markings.
Her thesis research examines how cultural burning affects habitat use and forage of ungulates on Tŝilhqot’in lands. Her work is part of a larger collaborative Indigenous Fire Stewardship program with Yunesit’in First Nation and Gathering Voices Society. She hopes that her research can help communicate the amazing work that Yunesit’in is doing while reducing systemic barriers that hinder Indigenous Fire Practitioners.
Focal Project Location: Tŝilhqot’in territory
Hannah Bates
Hannah started her MSc with WildCo in 2024, and is co-supervised by Dr. Robin Naidoo. Her research will use an established camera trap network in the South Chilcotin Mountains (St’át’imc territory) to investigate demography and survival of Mule Deer, whose population has been in decline. This research will utilize 7 years of continuous camera trap data collected both within and adjacent to South Chilcotin Mountains Provincial Park, which has been affected by large wildfires and is neighbouring forest harvesting and hydro-electric dams. Before her MSc, she guided backcountry paddling and hiking tours in the Yukon, and assisted with research on bumble bees in BC, and bonobos in the DRC.
Focal Project Location: South Chilcotin Mountains Provincial Park
Tristen Brush
Tristen started her MSc in the WildCo Lab in September 2024, after completing her undergraduate studies in UBC Forestry’s Conservation program. Her master’s project builds on research she conducted as a wildlife technician with the BC Ministry of Water, Lands, and Resource Stewardship on improving population abundance estimates of Roosevelt elk in the South Coast region of BC. She is applying distance sampling, a long-established and low-cost abundance estimation technique, to camera trap data, a newer form of wildlife data collection that enables non-intrusive observation of elusive species.
Using camera data collected on the Sechelt Peninsula, Tristen hopes to provide her shishalh Nation collaborators with accurate and precise estimates of elk, deer, and bear abundance on the Sechelt Peninsula as well as a how-to guide for conducting similar studies in the future. By bridging scientific innovation with practical applications, this research seeks to contribute to the sustainable management of culturally important wildlife populations for the well-being of First Nations, local communities, and beyond.
Focal Project Location: Sechelt Peninsula
Jag Athwal
Jag joined the WildCo Lab in September 2025 as an MSc student, with plans to transfer into the PhD program. His research focuses on the conservation of the declining Itcha-Ilgachuz caribou herd in the Chilcotin Plateau, exploring how habitat quality, predation, and broader ecosystem changes shape population dynamics. Before graduate school, Jag completed his B.Sc. in Ecological Restoration at the British Columbia Institute of Technology and worked as an Assistant Biologist with Wildlife Preservation Canada on recovery efforts for the endangered Taylor’s Checkerspot butterfly. He is passionate about applied research that supports species recovery and wildlife coexistence in BC.
Focal Project Location: Itcha-Illgachuz
Undergraduate Volunteers and Work-Learn Students
Vanessa Duthie
Vanessa is entering her fourth year in forestry focusing her studies on natural resources conservation. She started with Wildco in March 2025 as a volunteer tagging camera trap images for graduate student Hannah Bates. As of May 2025, Vanessa now works as a research assistant for the lab. Her roles include assisting with field work such as maintaining camera grids and vegetation surveys in South Chilcotin Mountains Provincial Park (St’át’imc territory) as well as on Tŝilhqot’in traditional and unceded territories. While not in the field, other roles include image processing and data entry for a variety of projects within the lab. Vanessa has a keen interest in wildlife ecology and management and is excited to learn more about the impact humans have on the landscape.
Elena Ferry
Elena, a third year student studying Natural Resources Conservation in the Faculty of Forestry, first joined WildCo in January 2025 as a Volunteer Image Tagger. During this time she helped to process camera trap images, a task she is excited to carry over into her new role as a WLIURA Research Assistant. Her tasks will include both field and lab work, and she can’t wait to spend her summer experiencing and protecting the natural beauty of BC. She is most passionate about wildlife ecology, the effects of land-use change, and community-based conservation.
Mary Haanen
Mary Haanen is a fourth year Forest Resource Management student at UBC. Over the past two summers, she has gained practical field experience working as a forest technician on post-disturbance forest regeneration projects, with a focus on landscapes affected by wildfire. She is currently contributing to Wildco’s large-mammal conservation and human-wildlife coexistence initiatives through laboratory research, maintenance of camera trap grids, and field surveys conducted in Mount Robson Provincial Park and the South Chilcotin region of British Columbia. On the side, she dabbles in logger sport competitions and leading the UBC Student Environmental Centre.
Staff Members
Katie Tjaden-McClement
Katie started her MSc in the WildCo Lab in September 2021, after previously completing her undergraduate honours thesis in the lab and working as a research technician on various projects in the lab. Her masters research uses camera traps to investigate interspecies interactions in the large mammal community of the Chilcotin Plateau in west-central BC.
She will be evaluating disturbance-mediated apparent competition as a driver of population decline for the Itcha-Ilgachuz caribou herd, where forest harvesting and forest fires provide enhanced forage for moose and mule, allowing predator populations to increase, ultimately causing increased predation on the caribou. She is also evaluating potential impacts of a large feral horse population in the area and whether they may be competing with and negatively effecting native ungulates, particularly moose.
Focal Project Location: Chilcotin Plateau
Lindsay Watson
Lindsay has completed her undergraduate degree in Biology and is currently working as a Research Assistant in the lab. Her roles include processing camera trap data and engaging in fieldwork excursions to complete camera checks in areas such as Mount Robson Provincial Park, Itcha Ilgachuz Provincial Park, and E.C. Manning Provincial Park. She has previously completed a Directed Studies project with the lab looking at the effectiveness of provincial legislation at protecting Woodland Caribou in B.C. Lindsay will be continuing her journey with WildCo, beginning as a master’s student in January 2026. She is extremely interested in terrestrial mammal ecology and is interested in learning more about the impacts of human activity on wildlife populations, and how humans can better coexist with wildlife.
Raunaq Nambiar
Raunaq began working at WildCo after completing his undergraduate degree in conservation at the Faculty of Forestry. His work as a staff member ranges from processing images, maintaining equipment, and project partner engagement and outreach. He helps co-ordinate WildCAM, a multi-institutional network of camera trapping and wildlife professionals, academics, and policy-makers that focusses on research capacity-building, science communications, and developing/reviewing best practices in the camera-trapping universe.
He is keenly interested in the science-policy interface, and in helping make the lab’s academic work more accessible to other user groups, from the general public to policy-makers and practitioners in government and local communities. Before WildCo, he worked on black bear conflict management project in Manning Park in collaboration with BC Parks, and has volunteered for various labs at UBC and with NGOs like the Stanley Park Ecology Society and the UBC Farm.
