Sharon Smythe Valverde
Ph.D. Student
Texas Tech University
Evaluating elk habitat and resource selection on an actively restored landscape in North-Central NM relative to mule deer competition and cougar and black bear predation.
After growing up in Guatemala and northeastern Tennessee, Sharon received her B.S. in Biology from Bryan College in Tennessee and completed an M.S. in Wildlife Science at Oregon State University investigating the nutritional carrying capacity of moose on the Copper River Delta of southcentral Alaska. She is now studying the space use of elk in response to mule deer and cattle forage competition, black bear and puma predation risk, and forest restoration treatments in the Jemez Mountains of northcentral New Mexico through her dissertation at Texas Tech. Sharon is co-advised by Dr. James Cain III at New Mexico State University.