San Diego, California, United States
Germar is an early-career scientist from southern California with a passion for wildlife biology, human-wildlife coexistence, and conservation research in shared landscapes. As an undergraduate at UCLA, Germar contributed to diverse projects involving animal behavior, conservation genomics, landscape ecology, and area-based conservation. During his master's program at Yale, his thesis was focused on human-carnivore coexistence and carnivore conservation in Mexican protected areas. Germar now supports the SDZWA giant panda conservation program, helping implement research in China to guide management strategies for panda conservation. He has extensive experience in international fieldwork, community and stakeholder engagement, project management, and scientific and technical writing. Most importantly, Germar strives to create a lasting change not only through applied conservation research, but by championing inclusivity and equity in the environmental sciences.
- Collaborate with international partners & stakeholders to advance giant panda conservation in China through targeted research and management efforts - Develop science-based conservation strategies to support the long-term protection of giant pandas & their habitats
- Master Student in the Applied Wildlife Ecology Lab - Carried out a camera trap study in southern Mexico, involving field work in rugged conditions, coordination amongst diverse stakeholders, grant writing, project management, and scientific dissemination to various audiences in Spanish & English - Conducted a geospatial gap analysis study to calculate the areal contributions of various area-based conservation approaches and determine hotspots that warrant conservation area expansion for Mexican carnivores - Contributed to spatial analyses of an educational intervention study assessing various spatial variables influencing capacity for environmental literacy in Detroit urban youth - Participated as a field technician on other ongoing lab projects in urban cities such as camera trapping of mesocarnivores in urban parks of Detroit, Michigan and small mammal trapping in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
- With growing global efforts like the 30x30 goal to expand protected areas by 2030, I conducted expert interviews and a literature review to: 1) understand the history of area-based conservation, 2) evaluate past and present approaches, 3) analyze the 30x30 initiative, and 4) identify ways to make conservation more equitable, inclusive, and community-driven
- Los Angeles Basin Habitat Suitability Project: developed habitat suitability maps using Maxent software and iNaturalist occurrence data for select species in the LA Basin to inform conservation management and urban planning for the LA city - California Genetics Meta-analysis Project (CaliPopGen): extracted and synthesized genetic diversity data for 500+ Californian species from relevant papers to inform future conservation management plans in California
- Assisted with the LA Genomics Project by performing a variety of wet lab tasks including the processing of DNA extraction from field samples, calculating DNA concentration in field samples, and running agarose gel electrophoresis - Organized lab freezers, storages and sample tubes
- Assisted with empirical (on the endangered mountain yellow-legged frog) and literature review-based studies of anti-predator training and reintroduction, including use of various software (e.g., ImageJ, R programming)
- Assisted in performing basic animal husbandry tasks, testing water quality, maintaining the lab facilities clean, and separating female/male zebrafish - Gained distinctive knowledge with laboratory facilities and procedures used to maximize zebrafish survival