Sean Lyon
MSC, ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCEs (expected graduation, spring 2023)
Thesis Title:
Quantifying the effects of 120 years of urban development on the avian community of the Los Angeles Basin
Brief background
Sean studies the historical ecology of birds in the Los Angeles Basin across a temporal gradient using museum specimens, community-science data, and statistical modeling. This work is part of the larger Los Angeles Landscape History collaboration with partner universities and institutions and gives conservation projects a historical baseline for restoration. Sean also manages the Cal State Los Angeles Bird Collections, seeking to bring this historic specimen collection on campus into the modern day through recuration and digitization. Concurrent with his work at Cal State Los Angeles, Sean is a Curatorial Assistant at the Moore Laboratory of Zoology at Occidental College.
Prior to Los Angeles, Sean worked at the Field Museum in Chicago, preparing window-killed birds and developing the digital imaging of passerine birds as part of a project called PLUME: Phenotypic Linkage Utilizing Multimedia in EMu. Sean also conducted agroecological surveys of smallholder farms in northern Tanzania for ECHO International and assessed the conservation status of amphibians as a Program Officer for the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.
For more, please visit Sean’s website.