Current students

Taline Almasian

Program: MS Lake Management
Project description: My thesis work involves researching and creating a lake management plan for Weiden Lake in Narrowsburg, NY. In addition to studying the general limnological aspects of the lake, I hope to create a baseline dataset for macroinvertebrate diversity within Weiden Lake and its surrounding watershed.

Cael Atkins

Program: MS Lake Management
Project description: I am from Wallkill, NY. I am in the MS Lake Management PSM program at SUNY Oneonta after my B.S in Fisheries & Aquaculture and AAS in Environmental Studies from SUNY Cobleskill. I work in environmental consulting focusing on harmful algae blooms and invasive aquatic plant mitigation. My passion is fisheries science and I am currently working on a lake in the southern Catskill mountains.

Billy Benedict

Program: MS Biology
Project description: The goal of my thesis work is to characterize the ecological value of Hudson River tributaries. We plan on sampling multiple trophic levels and calculating biological productivity, with the hope that this work will provide rationale for future restoration projects within the Hudson River watershed.

Eli Creedon

Program: MS Lake Management
Project description: I am currently monitoring and developing a watershed management plan for Horseshoe Pond and Deer River Flow, located in Franklin County and the Northern Adirondack Park.

Bryce Davis

Program: BS Computer Science
Project description: My name is Bryce Davis and I am a senior from Kingston, Jamaica, majoring in Computer Science with a minor in Math. My primary role on the Anadrofish project was to develop a friendly and interactive user interface. I used the R Shiny framework to build this web application, with the goal of making the complex anadrofish population model accessible and easy for biologists and researchers to use.

Ciara Gunderson

Program: MS Lake Management
Project description: I graduated from Cazenovia College in December 2022. I have a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Biology and I am currently working towards a Master of Science in Lake Management here at SUNY Oneonta. What I hope to obtain out of this is more in and out of field experience that will get me one step closer to working in restoration and fisheries science!

Alex Javitz

Program: MS Lake Lake Management
Project description: I am studying Loon Lake in Wayland, NY. This is a residential kettle lake within the Finger Lakes Region of western New York. During my study, I will use previous data collected from CSLAP reports along with the data that I collect to create a management plan for Loon Lake.

Nicholas Jordan

Program: MS Biology
Project description: The focus of my thesis is on the cold-water fishery of Otsego Lake, NY, using current and historical data to better understand lake trout (Salvelinus namaycush) population size structure and fish condition. Through the years there has been dynamic shifts in the lake food web and trophic status that affect lake trout as the top predator of the cold-water fishery. I will be using gill net surveys of lake trout form the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC) collected over the past 3 decades coupled with modern hydro acoustics methods to help quantify current population status.

Caleigh Millette

Program: MS Biology
Project description: My thesis work is investigating how the presence of invasive watermilfoil can affect the diversity and distribution of native aquatic plants within the Lake Champlain Basin. We plan on performing submerged aquatic vegetation surveys at 10 lakes within the basin. Through occupancy modeling with this data, I hope to grow the current understanding of aquatic plant management approaches. Outside of this lab, I am also the Aquatic Resource Specialist for Little Bear Environmental.

Richard Shafran

Program: MS Lake Managemnet
Project description: I am currently a PSM Lake Management student at SUNY Oneonta. I enjoy hiking, backpacking, fishing and other outdoor activities. Mainly I just enjoy spending time outside learning about and exploring nature.

Amanda Simmonds

Program: MS Biology
Project description: My research focuses on conducting a spatiotemporal analysis of the blue crab (Callinectes sapidus) population in the Hudson River using datasets from the NYSDEC blue crab, alosine beach seine, and striped bass beach seine surveys. By examining 21 years of data, I aim to identify trends in population size and geographic distribution of blue crabs within the Hudson River estuary. I aim to establish how projected impacts of climate change such as warming water temperatures, shifting salinity levels, and changing habitat use may affect the future distribution and abundance of the blue crab population in the Hudson River estuary.

Former graduate students (chronological)

Andrew Adams: MS Lake Management (2025)
Alex Allen: MS Lake Management (2025)
Asia Rose: MS Lake Management (2025)
Kari Minissale: MS Biology (2025)
Benjamin Thomas Cuppett: MS Lake Management (2024)
Jessica Casey: MS Lake Management (2024)
John (Danny) Skelton: MS Biology (2024)
Derek Shea: MS Lake Management (2024)
Brandon Guerrero: MS Biology (2023)
Matthew Best: MS Biology (2023)
Sinead Comerford: MS Lake Management (2023)
Lucas Le Tarte: MS Lake Management (2022)
David Pfuhler: MS Lake Management (2020)
Samantha Carey: MS Lake Management (2020)
Cindy Sosa: MS Lake Management (2020)
Hayley Dower: MS Biology (2020)
Erin Gilligan: MS Biology (2020)
Stradder Caves: MS Lake Management (2019)
David Andrews: MS Lake Management (2019)
Joseph O’Reilly: MS Lake Management (2019)
George Smith: MS Lake Management (2019)
Ryan Elliott: MS Lake Management (2019)
Joseph (Ben) Casscles: MS Lake Management (2018)
Edward Kwietniewski: MS Lake Management (2017)
Christian Jenne: MS Lake Management (2017)
Alejandro (AJ) Reyes: MS Lake Mangement (2016)