Dr. Luke Mcdonald

Instructor, Center for Wildlife Studies 

Ph.D. Wildlife Biology, Department of Wildland Resources, Utah State University

M.S. Wildlife Biology, Department of Wildland Resources, Utah State University

B.S. Wildlife, Fisheries, and Aquaculture Science, Mississippi State University

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Luke is a wildlife biologist leveraging remote sensing and GIS to study how humans and animals interact with each other as they navigate the landscape. His graduate research focused on understanding how moose navigate the road system in Alaska to aid the mitigation of moose-vehicle collisions. He combines on-the-ground data, like drone photography, GPS transmitters, or vegetation surveys, with satellite-derived data or metrics to answer questions about animal movement behavior and resource selection.Luke is an adjunct faculty member at Utah State University, where he instructs Python Programming for GIS and Advanced GIS.