Education

B.S. in Biology, Marquette University, Milwaukee Wisconsin

Research Interests

Currently, Nancy identifies birdstrikes, birds that are ingested into aircraft engines, using DNA Barcodes and the Barcode of Life Database or BoLD (www.barcodinglife.org) by comparing the mitochondrial CO1 (cytochrome oxidase subunit 1) gene from vouchered specimens to the unknown birdstrike samples. Data are used by civil and military aviation to design safer engines and windscreens, to create an Air Force data base that is used to predict bird movements and provide bird hazard warnings to pilots, and to improve habitat management schemes at airfields to discourage bird use.

Nancy came to the Bird Division in 2006 via Boston, Massachusettes where she managed Scott Edwards' molecular lab at Harvard University. Prior to that, Nancy worked as a technician in the Human and Molecular Genetics Center at the Medical College of Wisconsin where her training in high-throughput sequencing for the discovery of SNPs was instrumental in her transition to bird genetics. She has experience in automation and robotics to the study of non-model organisms, and worked on a project involving multilocus phylogeography of Australian Treecreepers (Climacteris picumnus and melanura ) using anonymous noncoding loci.

She is interested in ancient DNA techniques as well as bird systematics.

Selected Publications

Fleischer, R. C., J. J. Kirchman, J. P. Dumbacher, L. Bevier, C. Dove, N. C. Rotzel, S. V. Edwards, M. Lammertink, K. J. Miglia, W. S. Moore. 2006. Mid-Pleistocene divergence of Cuban and North American ivory-billed woodpeckers. Biology Letters 2(3): 466-469. Published online 10.1098/rsbl.2006.0490.

Presented a poster at the Wilson Ornithological Society 87th Annual Meeting in March 2007 in Boston, MA. [JPG]

Presented a poster at the Evolution 2005 meeting in Fairbanks, Alaska. [JPG]