This year, WFO provided travel grants to support 10 early-career professionals and graduate students in attending the 2026 Annual Conference in Ashland. Be sure to look for them at the conference, attend their presentations, and say hello!
Find the full science program schedule and all presentation abstracts here: 2026 Science Program: September 18 & 19, 2026
Sage Madden and Monica Sandri
Presentation: Friday, Sept. 18- Do urban songbirds beat the heat? Effects of urbanization and heat on the behavior, physiology, and reproduction of Black Phoebes.
Sage Madden is a fifth-year Ecology PhD candidate in the labs of professors Gail Patricelli and Thomas Coombs-Hahn at UC Davis. Sage’s research interests revolve around the behavioral and physiological responses of animals to human-induced environmental change, especially urbanization and climate change, and whether these responses are adaptive.
Monica Sandri is a first-year Animal Behavior PhD student in Gail Patricelli’s lab and a fourth-year master’s candidate in Lynette Hart’s lab at UC Davis. As a conservation behaviorist, Monica studies how and why nonhuman animals cope with anthropogenic change. Ultimately, she aims to leverage her research to improve human-wildlife coexistence strategies and conservation practice.
Sage and Monica received a WFO Research Grant in 2025 for this research.
Siiri Hamberg
Presentation: Friday, Sept. 18- Investigating mediators of the relationship between urbanization and parasite abundance in the Black Phoebe.
Siiri Hamberg is a third-year undergraduate majoring in Evolution, Ecology, and Biodiversity at UC Davis. Her current project with the urban ecology research effort Project Phoebe focuses on parasitism and immune health in wild songbirds, and she plans to enter a career in research, conservation, and science education.
Jyotsna Jha
Presentation: Friday, Sept. 18- Comparing physiological measures of stress in Black Phoebe nestlings.
Jyotsna Jha is a third-year undergraduate student at UC Davis studying Neurobiology and Wildlife Conservation. She has been working with Project Phoebe, a research project studying the impacts of urbanization on the Black Phoebe, for over two years now. She is particularly interested in studying the physiology of wild birds.
Haley Van Sloten
Presentation: Friday, Sept. 18- The effects of nest monitoring on Black Phoebe nestling growth.
Haley Van Sloten is a fourth-year undergraduate student studying Wildlife, Fish, and Conservation Biology at UC Davis. Her research focuses on the possible impacts of researcher nest monitoring on avian biology and behavior. She aspires to apply her findings to commonly used field methods to highlight ways in which researchers can mitigate their potential impacts on the species they study.
Stephanie Stragier
Presentation: Friday, Sept. 18- Factors influencing body condition and survival of Western Snowy Plover chicks.
Stephanie Stragier is a master’s student at Cal Poly Humboldt in Dr. Barbara Clucas’ lab where she is researching the Western Snowy Plover. Since discovering the wonderful world of birds in 2017, she has held various jobs and volunteer positions nest searching and monitoring for ground and cavity-nesting bird species, banding nestlings and adults, and conducting general breeding bird surveys.
Lauren Whitenack
Presentation: Friday, Sept. 18- Fecal metabarcoding reveals differences in Mountain Chickadee nestling diet across years with extreme variation in climate.
Lauren Whitenack is a PhD candidate at University of Nevada, Reno, studying Mountain Chickadee breeding ecology in Dr. Vladimir Pravosudov’s lab. She is also an avid birder and Vice President of the Northwest Nevada Bird Alliance, a local chapter of the National Audubon Society. Lauren received a research grant from WFO in 2025.
Cheyenne Stephens
Presentation: Saturday, Sept. 19- Climate change impacts on seabird community structure in nearshore waters of the California Current System.
Cheyenne Stephens is a graduate student in the Wildlife Department at Cal Poly Humboldt, where she studies community-level responses to climate change. She earned her bachelor’s degrees in Biology and Animal Behavior at Indiana University, and has worked on a wide range of field-based avian research projects, primarily focused on breeding ecology and population monitoring of at-risk species.
Harnawaz Singh Boparai
Presentation: Saturday, Sept. 19- Insectivorous birds regulate damage on native trees in an urban environment.
Harnawaz Boparai is an ornithologist, restoration ecologist, and urban wildlife ecologist based in California. He is heavily involved in community science and local conservation-based efforts throughout California and aspires to bridge the gap between scientific research and public education and outreach in the field of wildlife ecology and conservation.
Calvin Bonn
Presentation: Saturday, Sept. 19- Red crossbill diet phenology and diversity in western North America.
Calvin Bonn is an undergraduate student at UC Davis where he studies Wildlife, Fish, and Conservation Biology. His interest in crossbills stems from working as a research assistant in the Hahn Lab on campus. An active WFO member since 2018, he formerly served on the WFO Student Programs Committee and is currently a proud board member of Los Angeles Birders.
June 2026