Ricardo M. Holdo
Professor
Phone: (706) 542-0075
Email: rholdo@uga.edu
Office: Ecology 188B
Google Scholar profile: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=kvs9iOMAAAAJ&hl=en
Jason Donaldson
Senior Research Associate
Email: Jason.Donaldson@uga.edu
Jason is from Cape Town, South Africa, and received his Ph.D. from the University of the Witwatersrand, where he focused on interactions between fire, herbivores and vegetation in the Kruger National Park. Before joining our lab, Jason was a post-doc at Wake Forest University where he studied savanna dynamics and trophic cascades in the Serengeti National Park as part of Prof. T. Michael Anderson’s lab. Currently, he is conducting research in Serengeti as part of a collaborative project with Yale University, the University of Glasgow, Wake Forest University and the Tanzanian Wildlife Research Institute to analyze the effects of migrating wildebeest on macroparasite loads in resident herbivores. When in Athens, he is looking forward to exploring the trails of the Appalachian Mountains and watching live college football.
Michael Belovitch, M.Sc.
Ph.D. Student
Email: Belovimw@gmail.com
Michael is a PhD student working on savanna tree and grass responses to water stress. He has a broad range of research interests, from individual plant physiology, to inter-specific interactions, to modeling ecosystem level processes to be used in applied contexts. Michael’s past research at the Warnell School of Forestry (UGA) focused on ecohydrology within longleaf pine savannas of south Georgia. His project quantified the impact of hydraulic redistribution to the plant communities of this ecosystem and how access to groundwater differs between tree species. In his free time, Michael enjoys hiking, playing board games, and making pottery at Athens’ local studio.
Basil Senso
M.S. student
Email: Basil.Senso@uga.edu
Basil is a Master’s student from Tanzania who joined the lab in January 2024. Prior to joining the lab as a graduate student, Basil obtained his B.Sc. in Biotechnology and Laboratory Sciences at Sokoine University of Agriculture (SUA). Basil served as the lab manager for our collaborative project on migration and infectious disease dynamics project in Serengeti. Basil’s research focuses on the effects of wildebeest migration and environmental drivers on lungworm transmission in two resident alcelaphine antelope species closely related to wildebeest: topi and hartebeest.
Lab Alumni
Isabel Wargowsky (M.S. student)
Phoebe Judge (M.S. student)
Cece Working (M.S. student)
Niki Gajjar (B.S. student, undergraduate research assistant)
Jules NeSmith, Lab Manager and Research Assistant
Annabelle Barr (undergraduate research assistant)
Juliet Eden (B.A. Student, undergraduate research volunteer)
Laura Lenz (B.A. Student, undergraduate research volunteer)
Brooke Amerson (undergraduate research volunteer)
Kathryn King (undergraduate research volunteer)
Lucia Sol Mochi (Visiting Ph.D. Student and Fullbright Scholar, University of Buenos Aires)