B&C Fellow - Leslie Skora

Michigan State University - Masters - Graduated 2021
Monitoring brown bear abundance at Katmai National Park in Southwest Alaska

Leslie grew up in metro Detroit where she developed an interest in the outdoors and horseback riding at a young age. She received her bachelor’s degree in natural resources management from Grand Valley State University. Her interest in horses led her to Wyoming, where she worked as a pack mule guide on backcountry trips. Leslie was hired by the National Park Service in 2013 to monitor brown bear abundance at Katmai National Park in Southwest Alaska, soon realizing that there was an opportunity to use complex ecological modeling tools to better understand changes in the bear population over time. Now a wildlife biologist at Katmai, she is completing her M.S. work at MSU to answer these questions. Leslie plans to continue to work at the agency upon completion of her degree, integrating the quantitative tools she has acquired to explore new research questions.