Amanda Lawless, M.S.

About

As an undergraduate, Amanda studied the factors affecting recruitment of larval lobsters in the Turks and Caicos Islands. Later, she worked as a marine mammal intern at the Indianapolis Zoo and also in the consulting field as a water-quality and environmental scientist.

Amanda’s master’s thesis focused on the effects of shoreline development and oyster reefs on benthic communities in Chesapeake Bay. Upon graduation, she worked as a marine scientist at the Virginia Institute of Maritime Science, where she studied benthic infauna, oysters, and blue crabs and was a member of the Sea Turtle Stranding Program.

Prior to starting her role of associate population biologist with the Association of Zoos & Aquariums (AZA) Population Management Center in March 2016, Amanda worked at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, where she worked on collections-based curatorial and research projects on mollusks in the Department of Malacology.