UW Grad Student Wins Lyman and Margie McDonald Research Award for Wildlife Quantitative Analysis

University of Wyoming statistics graduate student Allie Midkiff, from Liberty, Mo., recently was named the winner of the Lyman and Margie McDonald Research Award for Quantitative Analysis in Wildlife.

“I am thrilled and humbled to receive the Lyman and Margie McDonald Research Award for Quantitative Analysis in Wildlife,” Midkiff says. “This award validates the importance of research in optimizing wildlife survey methods and underscores the significance of collaborative efforts in conservation science.”

To win the award, Midkiff had to fulfill a number of criteria relating to the impact, scholarly value and practical value of her research. The award, designed to provide monetary support to UW graduate students in zoology and physiology as well as mathematics and statistics, will help support Midkiff’s continued research in the field of wildlife ecology.

Midkiff’s project, titled “Using State-Space Models to Evaluate Uncertainty in Competing Survey Designs for Monitoring Pronghorn Abundance and Recruitment at the Sheldon-Hart Mountain National Wildlife Refuge Complex,” is focused on finding cheaper and safer ways for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) to survey pronghorn in the Sheldon-Hart Mountain National Wildlife Refuge complex. The refuge in Oregon and Nevada, one of the largest in the entirety of the continental U.S. at over 840,000 acres, stands as one of the few remaining bastions of vital sagebrush steppe habitat, which is crucial for sustaining pronghorn populations.

Kevin Kilbride, USFWS Region 1 inventory and monitoring coordinator, recognizes the importance of Midkiff’s research.

“This project is vitally important to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in assessing the sampling design for the pronghorn survey to gain efficiencies (that) are essential to continue to conduct this important survey in a cost-effective and safe manner while maintaining the quality of information derived from it,” Kilbride says.

Midkiff not only earned high praise from the USFWS, but also from UW College of Engineering and Physical Sciences Department of Mathematics and Statistics Professors Tim Robinson and Shaun Wulff, who co-supervised Midkiff’s research.

“Our program is extremely grateful to Lyman and Margie McDonald for their sponsorship of this award,” Robinson says.

Midkiff’s project is associated with her master’s data analysis capstone project, a requirement of all UW master’s candidates, which allows students to gain hands-on experience applying the skills and knowledge that they have gained in the classroom to real datasets with real questions.

“These projects often involve tackling complex, open-ended problems where the student builds their consulting portfolio and prepares them for the workforce,” Robinson says. “The Lyman and Margie McDonald Award has a highly competitive pool of applicants, and Allie should feel very proud that her project has received this recognition.”

“This is indeed a challenging and important research project,” Wulff says. “We are excited to have our top graduate students, like Allie Midkiff, engaged in opportunities like this where they can make important statistical contributions.” 

To learn more about UW statistics graduate program and capstone projects, visit www.uwyo.edu/uw/degree-programs/statistics-ms.html or https://youtu.be/IFqvyr-AR5E.