Our Team


Dr. Christina Semeniuk

Dr. Christina Semeniuk

Associate Professor
2013 to present
semeniuk@uwindsor.ca

The unifying thread driving my research program is a focus on how human disturbance affects adaptive decisions of organisms as they attempt to optimize competing fitness-maximizing goals, and how these resulting tradeoffs ultimately modify the persistence and resilience of wildlife populations. My experience with conservation issues is based on a strong theoretical background in behavioural ecology that is combined with field studies, state-of-the-art quantitative methods such as agent-based modeling and system dynamics modeling, quantitative statistics, econometric models of human behaviour, and GIS applications. I joined the Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research at the University of Windsor in January 2013.


Dr. Kathleen Church

Dr. Kathleen Church

Post-Doctoral Fellow
2018 to Present

Kathleen recently completed her PhD in Jim Grant’s lab at Concordia looking at behaviour and personality in Atlantic salmon and cichlids. Kathleen is currently assessing the personality of Atlantic salmon over multiple tests with different stimuli, and aims to ultimately link personality traits to metabolic rates and anti-predator behaviours in a naturalized mesocosm.


Dr. Andrew Barnas

Dr. Andrew Barnas

Post-Doctoral Fellow
2020 to Present
andrew.f.barnas@gmail.com

Andrew joined the lab in January 2020 after completing his PhD at the University of North Dakota on Lesser snow geese and drones. Andrew’s research interests involved understanding nesting bird behaviour, primarily in the context of how naïve prey species respond to novel predators. Andrew uses drones to observe interactions between nesting Common eiders (prey) and polar bears (predators), and he will use these observations to build simulation models of nesting eider behaviour under forecasted climate change scenarios.

https://andrewbarnas.weebly.com/


Rodrigo Solis-Sosa

Rodrigo Solis-Sosa

PhD Candidate
2014 to Present
rsolis@sfu.ca

Rodrigo is co-supervised by Dr. Sean Cox, and is based at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia. Rodrigo’s work examines migration patterns of the Monarch butterfly throughout North America using social-ecological modelling.


Chelsea Frank

Chelsea Frank

MSc Student
2019 to present
frankc@uwindsor.ca

Chelsea has been a member of the Semeniuk Lab since she joined as a volunteer in the fall of 2016 when she was in second year. After completing her undergraduate thesis with the lab, Chelsea is continuing behaviour work at the Master’s level in the Semeniuk Lab. Chelsea will be working with hatchery salmon that have undergone triploidy or left as diploids, and raised with or without probiotics. Using a behavioural challenge, Chelsea will link favourable hatchery behaviours and brain gene expression to give new insights into Chinook salmon farming.


Erica Geldart

Erica Geldart

MSc Student
2018 to present
geldart@uwindsor.ca

Erica moved to Windsor from New Brunswick, where she recently completed her undergraduate degree at Mount Allison University. Her Honour’s thesis at Mount Allison investigated the movement patterns of Semipalmated Sandpipers and Semipalmated Plovers within Eastern New Brunswick. Under the co-supervision of Dr. Christina Semeniuk and  Dr. Oliver Love, Erica’s Master’s research will aim to link behaviour, ecophysiology, and evolutionary ecology in the common Eider, and to study the effects changing environment has on their fitness.


Brendyn St. Louis

Brendyn St. Louis

MSc Student
2019 to Present
stlouisb@uwindsor.ca

Brendyn will be working with YIAL hatchery salmon in British Columbia that have undergone triploidy or left as diploids, and raised with or without probiotics. Using a behavioural challenge, Brendyn will link favourable hatchery behaviours and physiological profiles to give new insights into Chinook salmon farming.


Alex Wilder

Alex Wilder

MSc Student
2019 to present
wilder11@uwindsor.ca

Alex is our first MSc. to be working with Brook Trout! She will be examining survival and behaviour performance in fish reared under different temperature regimes. Her fish will be tested at multiple stages in a new set of mazes to mimic trade-offs in a simulated environment.


Omar Taboun

Omar Taboun

MSc Student
2019 to present
tabouno@uwindsor.ca

Omar is working with our collaborator Eddie Halfyard from the Nova Scotia Salmon Association. The West River Atlantic Salmon population has experienced liming dosage to mitigate the effects of acidification. Omar is assessing the behavioural responses of Atlantic Salmon smolts migrating downstream to a novel predator and food. This behavioural data will be paired with acoustic tracking data as the salmon migrate through the river mouth and into the ocean.


Theresa Warriner

Theresa Warriner

Research Associate
2016 to present
warrinet@uwindsor.ca

Theresa joined in 2016, and had a background of undergraduate research with contaminants and the Round Goby in Dr. Sigal Balshine’s lab at McMaster University. For her MSc, Theresa examined how maternal effects may influence behaviour and physiology of juvenile Lake Ontario Chinook salmon under elevated water temperatures with co-supervisor Dr. Oliver Love. Currently, she assists lab members with fieldwork, equipment training, software training, and statistical analysis while prepping and submitting manuscripts.


Cassie Simone

Cassie Simone

Volunteer
2019 to Present

Cassie is a Behaviour, Cognition, and Neuroscience student and is currently going through trail camera footage to locate and situate polar bears on a map of East Bay Island in order to recreate their foraging path and relay this to eider hen responses to a novel predation threat.


Allie St Louis

Allie St Louis

Volunteer
2019 to Present

Allie is a second year Neuroscience student and is currently assisting Brendyn St Louis and Chelsea Frank with their morphometric analyses of their diploid and triploid Chinook Salmon. She is using ImageJ to quantify morphological and growth differences in diploids and triploid juvenile salmon being fed control or probiotic-supplemented diets.