President

Virginia Tilden

Virginia has a BS in Biology (concentration in Ecology and Environmental Biology) from Shippensburg University and an MS in Environmental Biology from Hood College. She is a Wildlife Biologist at Fort Indiantown Gap (FIG) National Guard Training Center, Annville, PA. In this role, she supports the military mission by managing flora and fauna and their associated habitats, working to keep common species common, and reducing the potential impacts of military training on rare species. While Virginia assists with a variety of wildlife management projects, her focus is conservation of the only remaining population of the eastern regal fritillary butterfly and the grassland habitat on which it relies. Virginia has been working on these efforts at FIG since 2006. Some of her primary duties include managing butterfly surveys, assisting with habitat monitoring and management, coordinating the annual public butterfly tours at FIG, developing and maintaining partnerships, and extensive work on rearing and reintroduction efforts. Virginia believes in the importance of collaboration and integration of multiple disciplines into wildlife management. One of the ways she executes this is through her commitment to scientific organizations. She served as PATWS VP-P-PP and Treasurer from 2010-2017 and as an Entomological Society of Pennsylvania Board Member at large and VP-P-PP from 2013-2018. In her free time, Virginia likes to hike and do all things outdoors, and spend time with her kids, family, and friends.

Vice-President

Chris Hauer

Certified Wildlife Biologist®

Chris Hauer is a wildlife biologist with the Pennsylvania Department of Military and Veterans Affairs at Fort Indiantown Gap National Guard Training Center. In this role, Chris is primarily responsible for research and monitoring of rare, threatened, and endangered species on the installation, with a focus on bats, Allegheny woodrats, and turtles. His current research interests include the response of wildlife populations to habitat management (e.g., prescribed fire, timber harvest) and disease (e.g., white-nose syndrome). Prior to his current position, Chris worked as a bat technician for Wildlife Specialists, LLC. and Temple University. Since 2015, Chris has also been a lecturer in the Department of Science and Mathematics at Alvernia University where he teaches laboratory courses in Human Anatomy and Physiology. Chris received a B.S. in Biology from Albright College and an M.S. in Biology from East Stroudsburg University where he studied the impacts of white-nose syndrome on bats in the Delaware Water Gap. He has been a member of PATWS since 2017 and is currently working towards his certification as a Certified Wildlife Biologist with The Wildlife Society. In addition to being a member of PATWS, he is also a member of the Pennsylvania Mammal Technical Committee, Pennsylvania Prescribed Fire Council, Northeast Bat Working Group, and Northeast Partners in Amphibian and Reptile Conservation. He is also certified as a Pennsylvania Qualified Bat Surveyor, Wildland Firefighter Type I, and HunterTrapper Education Instructor. In his free time, Chris enjoys hunting, fishing, weightlifting, and cooking. He lives in Schuylkill County with his wife and three young children.

Past President

Christina Voorhees

Certified Wildlife Biologist®

Christina Voorhees is a Certified Wildlife Biologist® with over 20 years of experience in wildlife management, natural resource planning, and endangered species consultation. Her educational journey started with an A.S. in Wildlife Technology from Penn State DuBois followed by a B.S. in Wildlife Science from Virginia Tech. Upon returning to Pennsylvania, she completed her M.S. and PhD at Penn State where she focused on human dimensions of natural resources. She is currently located in central Pennsylvania where she works as a Senior Wildlife Biologist and Terrestrial Operations Manager for EnviroScience, Inc. In this role, she is responsible for project management, client relations, and business development in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions. In addition to being a member of the PA and national chapters of The Wildlife Society, Christina is also involved with the PA Society for Ornithology and the PA Association of Environmental Professionals. Christina has past experience serving on the PA TWS board and held the role of President in 2014 when Pennsylvania hosted the annual TWS conference in Pittsburgh.

Secretary

Madison Davis

Madison (Madi) Davis grew up in a rural town in Saskatchewan, Canada but came to the USA for college. She attended the University of Wyoming, where she received a BS in Microbiology in 2022. With a passion for disease ecology and One Health, Madi decided to pursue her MS in Animal & Veterinary Sciences at the University of Wyoming. Her research focused on the role bobcats may play in CWD ecology – determining whether they contribute to the spread of CWD by shedding CWD prions across the landscape in their feces after consumption of an infected cervid or if they can limit the spread through consumption. Throughout her academic career, Madi had a passion for teaching and was a teaching assistant for General Microbiology, Pathogenic Microbiology, and Medical Virology courses. Besides research and teaching, Madi was involved in many involved with several trips to South Dakota where she helped wrangle bison for bacterial pneumonia testing and research. Currently, Madi is a Chronic Wasting Disease research scientist at the Wildlife Futures Program since July 2024. Her role in this position has primarily focused on optimizing and validating various cervid tissues for CWD diagnostics. In her free time, Madi enjoys the outdoors, crafting, and nerding out about wildlife disease.

Treasurer

Shaniah Miller

Currently, Shaniah is the Pennsylvania Game Commissions Southwest Region Bear Technician. Prior to this position, she was a Bio Aide for two years on the wild turkey research project, and before that a biology intern with PGC. Shania attended Penn State Beaver, where she founded the Biology Club and served as President until graduation in 2022. She currently resides in Kittanning; however, she is originally from Bellwood, PA. Shania enjoys exploring the outdoors and meeting others with a passion for wildlife and conservation!

Newsletter Editor

​Emily Sandly

Associate Wildlife Biologist®

Emily Sandly is a 2020 graduate of Keystone College with a Bachelor’s degree in Wildlife Biology and is an Associate Wildlife Biologist. She has held a variety of seasonal positions, from a songbird field technician with the University of Montana, to seabird research assistant with the National Audubon Society’s Seabird Restoration Program. She was a member of the Visitor Services team at Hawk Mountain Sanctuary from 2021-2023 in Kempton, PA, which is the first raptor migration count site in North America. In the fall of 2023, she was a seasonal Hawk Counter for the Sanctuary at Little Gap and Route 183 hawkwatches. She has worked as a Deer Biologist Aide with the Pennsylvania Game Commission for the winter 2024 trapping season. Most recently, she was employed as a Naturalist with Hawk Ridge Bird Observatory in Duluth, MN during the fall migration season of 2024. Currently, she works part-time for Hawk Mountain Sanctuary in Visitor Services, and plans to hawk count again this fall. Otherwise, she is employed at Cigars International in Hamburg, PA as a retail associate. She has been a member of The Wildlife Society since 2016, and has served on the Pennsylvania Chapter board since 2021 as both a board member at-large and the Newsletter Editor for her third year. Emily is an avid outdoorswoman and can always be found birding, hunting, fishing, hiking or camping in Penn’s woods in her free time with her partner around Berks county, and at her hunting cabin in Pleasant Mount.

Digital Media Manager/Student Liaison

Terra Haines

Associate Wildlife Biologist®

Terra is a graduate of the Wildlife Technology program at Penn State DuBois and is currently pursuing her Master of Wildlife & Fisheries Resources degree through Clemson University’s award-winning remote program. Before she transitioned into a career in wildlife, Terra built a successful career as a Registered Nurse. Throughout Terra's nursing career, she volunteered with various agencies to contribute to wildlife conservation and worked as a seasonal timber rattlesnake construction monitor for two environmental consulting firms. Currently, Terra works full-time as a Rabies Technician with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In addition to her professional role, she is a permitted educator of timber rattlesnakes, delivering hands-on presentations to diverse audiences across Pennsylvania to foster awareness and appreciation for this often misunderstood species.

Northeast Section Representative

Tammy Colt

Tammy Colt has been a Regional Wildlife Diversity Biologist for the Pennsylvania Game Commission since 2005, covering the ten counties of PA’s Southwest Region. As an RWDB, her primary duties involve the management of Pennsylvania’s bird and mammal species of greatest conservation need—approximately 100 species. She works with public and private landowners to develop habitat management plans and provide guidance for habitat improvements that benefit declining species. Tammy has a B.S. in Animal Bioscience from Pennsylvania State University and an M.S. in Biology from Indiana University of Pennsylvania. She studied temporal changes in herpetofaunal populations at Powdermill Nature Reserve (Carnegie Museum of Natural History’s biological field station) for her Master’s thesis. Before graduate school, she worked as an environmental educator at Powdermill Nature Reserve for five years. During that time she was Project Coordinator and co-author of Pennsylvania Amphibians and Reptiles: A Curriculum Guide (PA Fish and Boat Commission, 2001). A Loyalhanna Watershed Association volunteer since 2003 and a current member of the board of directors, Tammy serves as project coordinator for Loyalhanna Turtle Watch and coordinates hellbender e-DNA monitoring within the Loyalhanna Watershed, while also serving as the Land Committee Chair. With a passion for land conservation, she also serves on the board of the Westmoreland Land Trust and chairs their Stewardship Committee. Tammy has served as President of the PA Chapter of The Wildlife Society and Treasurer for the Northeast Section of TWS; she is serving her first term as treasurer for PATWS. Having held multiple board positions in the PA Chapter and NE Section, Tammy understands the importance of subunit governance and coordination with our parent organization, The Wildlife Society. Outside of work, she enjoys hiking, kayaking, owning and riding horses (including an adopted American Mustang), and growing vegetables on her family farm.

Membership Coordinator

Dr. Justin Brown

Justin Brown is an Assistant Teaching Professor in the Department of Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences at Penn State University. He received his D.V.M. from Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine in 2004 and his Ph.D. in Pathology from the University of Georgia in 2008. From 2008-2013, he was a wildlife disease diagnostician and researcher at the Southeastern Cooperative Wildlife Disease Study. Justin then served as the veterinarian for the Pennsylvania Game Commission from 2013-2018. His career interests include understanding the impacts of diseases on wildlife populations and the potential for wildlife species involvement in diseases of agricultural or public health importance. He has worked with a wide diversity of birds, mammals, and reptiles, and has extensive experience with avian influenza virus and other viral diseases of birds and mammals.

Board Member at Large

Avery Corondi

Avery graduated from Delaware Valley University in 2015 with a BS in biology. At DelVal, she was first introduced to The Wildlife Society. Since graduating, she has held various seasonal positions followed by several years working for the PA Game Commission with a concentration on elk ecology. She completed her MSc at Penn State in 2023, which focused on elk reproduction and calf survival. She recently founded Dark Hollow Wildlife Consulting to provide field services for wildlife research, and currently, she is sampling white-tailed deer for SARS-CoV-2 as part of a nationwide surveillance effort. She spends her free time camping with her horse, flyfishing, and hunting.

Board Member at Large

Grace Lewis

Growing up, the fields, forests, and Appalachian ridges of eastern Pennsylvania composed the landscapes Grace called home. In more recent years, she has lived in central Pennsylvania, Alaska, and central New York. Her undergraduate degree is in wildlife conservation from Juniata College, and since then she has gone on to work with the PA Game Commission, Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center, and Lime Hollow Nature Center in various roles. This year, she returned to Penn's Woods, where she has started the pursuit of a dual master's degree in Forest Resources and Transdisciplinary Research on Environment and Society through a research assistantship at Penn State. Hiking, biking, birding, backpacking, hunting, skiing, and taking photos are some of her most favorite things to do in her free time, and she is so excited to be reconnecting with her connections here in Pennsylvania (PATWS included)!

Board Member at Large

Alissa Serro

Alissa Serro has been a wildlife biologist aide with the Pennsylvania Game Commission since 2023. She was hired for wild turkey trapping efforts as well as Chronic Wasting Disease management in white-tailed deer in Southcentral Pennsylvania. Through her time with the Game Commission, Alissa has participated in various projects and has worked with white-tailed deer, wild turkeys, black bears, songbirds, ducks, geese, mourning doves, bats, and Alleghany woodrats. She graduated from Shippensburg University with both her B.S. and M.S. in Biology with a concentration in Ecology, Environment, and Conservation. For her Master’s Degree, Alissa focused on the ecology of several tick species within Southcentral Pennsylvania. Alissa has been an avid outdoorswoman from a young age and enjoys hunting, fishing, hiking, and gardening in her spare time.

Board Member at Large

Matthew Williams

Associate Wildlife Biologist®

Matthew Williams is a Wildlife Habitat Group Manager with the Pennsylvania Game Commission in the Northeast Region. He received a B.S. in Fisheries and Wildlife Science from Paul Smith’s College, where he also fulfilled the requirements of Associate Wildlife Biologist® from The Wildlife Society. Matthew later went on to receive a M.S. in Biology from Western Illinois University. His career path has been diverse and taken me around the country working in 9 different states including: Black bear in Florida, Fishers and Marten in the Pacific Northwest, Sharp-tailed Grouse in Montana, and waterfowl and fish in Illinois to name a few. These positions had been with Universities, State, and Federal Agencies offering insights into working with and alongside multiple agencies and partners. This has eventually led him back to Pennsylvania where he currently manages approximately 67,000 acres of State Game Lands in Pike and Monroe Counties.