Hello World!

Welcome to the Bassing Lab! I am thrilled to be starting as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Ecology and building my research program at Montana State University. I'll use this blog to share lab news and research updates as time goes on. But to start, I thought I'd introduce myself and share a bit of my background.

A bit about me and how I got here
I've been fascinated by animals and nature since I was a kid and always knew I wanted to work with wildlife in some capacity. That prompted me to attend the University of Montana for my undergraduate degree where I earned a BS in Wildlife Biology in 2008. After graduating, I worked a number field technician jobs, from monitoring bald eagle nests in Arizona to Pacific fisher distributions and abundance in California. I was fortunate enough to work for the Montana Cooperative Wildlife Research Unit for several years, conducting noninvasive genetic sampling of wolves in Idaho and Alberta, Canada. This work eventually turned into my Master's project at the University of Montana, where I studied the effects of harvest on wolf occurrence and dispersal.

While wrapping up my MS, I recognized that I enjoyed conducting research and wanted to continue honing my research skills. I also realized that I sort of enjoyed the statistics side of research (I did not see that coming), which prompted me to join the Quantitative Ecology Lab at the University of Washington for my PhD in 2017. My dissertation focused on how predator-prey interactions shape the co-occurrence, activity, and movements of species like wolves, cougars, deer, and elk. I led a large-scale camera trapping effort across two study areas in eastern Washington and collaborated with fellow graduate students and agency biologists from WA Dept. of Fish & Wildlife to conduct my research. I also had the privilege of mentoring undergraduate students through independent research projects and an image processing internship program that I established. These experiences taught me that I enjoyed collaborating with state wildlife management agencies and mentoring students.

I completed my PhD in Environmental and Forest Sciences in 2022 while also starting a post-doc at the University of Idaho with the Idaho Cooperative Fish & Wildlife Research Unit. For the next two years I worked closely with agency biologists from Idaho Dept. of Fish & Game to study predator-predator interactions using camera trap data collected across northern Idaho. My work primarily focused on how competition and prey influenced co-occurrence and relative abundances among large predators and their prey, but I also worked with federal partners to develop tools to improve Mexican wolf monitoring. I also had the pleasure of mentoring several undergraduate and graduate students with their own independent research projects at the University of Idaho.

And that leads to me Montana State University. As my post-doc wrapped up, I started looking for jobs that would allow me to continue my research, work alongside state and federal wildlife management agencies, and mentor students. Having loved Montana from the moment I walked onto campus for my undergrad, it was an obvious decision to apply for a position at MSU. And here we are!
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I’m looking forward to seeing where the next leg of this journey takes me.