Franklin Egan
I am a Masters student in Penn State’s Ecology program interested in the conservation of beneficial biodiversity in agroecosystems. Advances have been made in within-field farm management practices that conserve beneficial plants and insects, but a growing consensus indicates that successfully managing functional biodiversity requires a landscape perspective. Using a combination of GIS-based analysis and floristic surveys across a gradient of landscape heterogeneity, my research will explore relationships between land use patterns and the composition and diversity of plant communities in PA’s agricultural landscapes. This research will contribute towards the objective of developing a quantitative framework for understanding the impacts of land use change on the conservation of plant diversity in agricultural landscapes.
I graduated from Cornell University in 2004 with BS degrees in ecology and evolutionary biology and natural resources management. As an undergraduate I spent several summers at the Rocky Mountain Biological Lab studying the biological control of an invasive weed, Linaria vulgaris. Since graduating, I have traveled extensively while working in various capacities as a research assistant. I traveled to Venezuela in 2005 with a team of stream ecologists from Cornell to study nitrogen cycling in tropical rivers, spent a winter doing research on invasive wasp management with the USGS in Hawaii’s Volcanoes National Park, and recently spent a half year in the European Union helping to managing a set of common garden experiments designed to elucidate life history evolution in the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana. Among other things, I’ve learned that a biology degree makes a versatile passport.
I am a native of Philadelphia and happy to be back in PA after some time out and about. During the span between my degrees, I was also fortunate to have the opportunity to spend a season apprenticing on a diversified organic vegetable farm in Orange County, NY. We grew more than 50 varieties of herbs and vegetables and sold our produce at the Union Square farmer’s market, the flagship market of NYC’s all-local GreenMarket system. I am passionate about sustainable agriculture, and I am looking forward to making a contribution to this movement as an ecologist here in the Mortensen lab group.
In my free time, I enjoy cooking, gardening, running, playing the guitar and singing untunefully.
Contact Franklin.