© 2011 Mary E. Blair

I just finished my Ph.D. in Evolutionary Primatology in the Department of Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Biology (E3B) at Columbia University, which is a part of the New York Consortium in Evolutionary Primatology (NYCEP). I am now a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Biodiversity and Conservation at the American Museum of Natural History.

My research interests include the ecology, evolution, behavior, and conservation biology of primates and other mammals. In particular I am interested in how animals respond to environmental change, and seek to answer this question by integrating genetic methods with spatial modeling. In my dissertation, I focused on how Central American Squirrel Monkeys move through a heterogeneous, human-modified landscape in the Central Pacific region of Costa Rica. I am broadly trained in landscape genetics and ecology, biogeography, behavioral ecology, molecular phylogenetics, and conservation biology. Next I plan to study how species might respond to future climate change by developing improved models that incorporate behavioral and genetic data.