Helen St. John is a PhD Student in the Graduate Group in Ecology at the University of California, Davis, advised by Dr. Daniel Karp. She received a B.A. in Biology from Grinnell College in 2022 and an M.S. in Biology from James Madison University in 2026. During her Master’s, she studied the impact of radio telemetry tags on monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) movement, behavior, and survival, helping to identify tags and tag adhesives that allow researchers to track monarch butterflies without altering individual behavior.
Helen is broadly interested in animal movement ecology, predator-prey interactions, agroecosystems, and global change impacts. She is particularly interested in how environmental conditions and anthropogenic influences impact animal movement and behavior. At Davis, Helen is building on her background in animal movement ecology to study the cascading impacts of prey availability on predator movement, behavior, and reproductive success using American barn owls (Tyto furcata) on California nut orchards as a study system. Her research aims to improve our basic understanding of predator-prey dynamics and animal movement, while also helping to inform farmers and wildlife managers of ways we can better manage ecosystems for people and nature.