Stephanie Cunningham

Title: Postdoctoral Associate
Email: sac793@msstate.edu

Dr. Stephanie Cunningham is a quantitative and applied ecologist with interests in behavior, spatial ecology, and demography related to the conservation and management of birds and mammals. She is a postdoctoral associate in the Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Aquaculture at Mississippi State University.

Stephanie attended Michigan State University for her undergraduate degree in Zoology. Afterwards, she spent two years working for a conservation organization in Namibia, and then an additional three years as a field technician before enrolling at the University of Missouri to obtain her MSc in Natural Resources. Her master's research focused on how greater white-fronted goose behavior during spring migration might be associated with probability of breeding deferral upon arrival in the Arctic.

Stephanie completed her PhD in Ecology at State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry in 2023 under the supervision of Dr. Jaqueline Frair and state agency partner Dr. Paul Jensen. Her dissertation research investigated prevalence of anticoagulant rodenticide exposure in fishers across New York State, as well as the relationship between landscape characteristics and fisher survival and productivity in northern New York. Stephanie's current work at Mississippi State involves using high-frequency accelerometer and location data to infer behavior of beef cattle on the USDA Central Plains Experimental Range in Colorado, part of a broader experiment investigating cattle grazing patterns and distributions in the context of sustainable rangeland management.