Katie Gorman
Postdoctoral Researcher and Curatorial Assistant, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Living in Blacksburg, United States
Katie Gorman is a Research Scientist and Vertebrate Curatorial Assistant at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in the United States in the Department of Fish and Wildlife Conservation. Her research focus thus far has been small mammals in the Southern Appalachians and mid-Atlantic regions of the eastern United States, particularly working with federally-threatened bat and flying squirrel species.
Her research also extends to woodrats and shrews, and she hopes to continue to expand her taxonomic repertoire in the future. As her next step in her career, she hopes to join the European research community. In particular, she is interested in climate change, animal movement models, anthropogenic disturbance, and habitat fragmentation.
Europe, in her opinion, would be an ideal place to pursue these interests due to its long history of urbanization, wide variation in topography and climate, and small (relative to the U.S.), increasingly-fragmented forests. Her unconventional background in the humanities informs both her research approach and her commitment to outreach for underrepresented people in STEM and K-12 students.
She sees herself as an example of someone who did not think they were ‘smart’ enough to be a scientist, but who has gone on to contribute to real management actions, including federal monitoring guidelines, for endangered species in the United States.
