The major thrusts of our research is in systematic biodiversity conservation and restoration planning and disease ecology and epidemiology. However, we are interested in all areas of computational and mathematical biology, especially ecology and conservation biology. Our past work has included the production of software packages for conservation planning. Our software products include the ResNet, Consnet, ResNet-GUI, Surrogacy, LQGraph, and MultCSync packages which can be freely downloaded from the Conservation Software link to the left. We also maintain the Disease Vectors Database.

Students in the laboratory come from a variety of disciplines including biology, computer science, geography, mathematics, operations research, and philosophy. Most students do projects which contain both a theoretical and an applied component. Recent and ongoing projects include:

• the use of stochastic optimization to solve the problem of scheduling conservation actions optimally (Trevon Fuller);

• the use of ecological niche modeling to predict transformation of spatial disease risk (Stavana Strutz);

• the design of interdiction protocols to arrest the spatial spread of disease (Stavana Strutz);

• the development of graph-theoretic algorithms and software to establish connectivity between conservation areas and to select restoration areas in a network (Trevon Fuller);

• the use of tabu search to design spatially coherent conservation area networks (Michael Ciarleglio);

• the development of multi-criteria analysis (MCA) protocols and software for use in biodiversity conservation planning (Alex Moffett);

• area prioritization for biodiversity conservation in the Eastern Himalayas (Samraat Pawar, along with personnel from the California Academy of Sciences);

• conservation planning for Papua province of New Guinea (Stavana Strutz, in collaboration with Conservation International - Indonesia);

• comprehensive conservation assessments for Mexico (Trevon Fuller, Patricia Illoldi-Rangel, in collaboration with faculty and students from UNAM);

• biodiversity surveys of the Balcones Canyonlands National Wildlife Refuge (Tiffany Hollon and Blake Sissel);

• a browser-based protocol for using ResNet and MultCSync with our laboratory computers (Alex Moffett).