Abby Keller

PhD Candidate

Education

Master of Marine Affairs, University of Washington

Bachelor of Science, Haverford College

Research Interests / Specializations:

decision theory, population dynamics, ecological modeling

Research Description:

Uncertainty is a fundamental feature of ecological systems and their management: knowledge of the system state and its dynamics is imperfect, actions have uncertain consequences, and factors like climate change will alter the environment in ways that can be hard to predict. My dissertation represents a range of approaches to uncertainty in ecology and conservation, from improving inference about complex biological systems to optimizing management actions that alter stochastic dynamics.

Selected Publications

Keller, A.G. and Kelly, R.P. eDNAjoint: an R package for interpreting paired or semi-paired environmental DNA and traditional survey data in a Bayesian framework. (2025). Methods in Ecology and Evolution. 00,1–9. https://doi.org/10.1111/2041-210X.70000

Keller, A.G., Counihan, T.D., Grosholz, E.D., Boettiger, C. The transition from resistance to acceptance: managing a marine invasive species in a changing world. (2025). Journal of Applied Ecology. https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2664.14881

Goldstein, B.R., Keller, A.G., Calhoun, K.L., Barker, K.J., Montealegre-Mora, F., Serota, M.W., Van Scoyoc, A., Parker-Shames, P., Androzzi, C., de Valpine, P. (2024) How do ecologists estimate occupancy in practice? Ecography. e07402. https://doi.org/10.1111/ecog.07402

Keller, A.G., Dahlhoff, E.P., Bracewell, R., Chatla, K., Bachtrog, D., Rank, N.E., Williams, C.M. (2023). Multi-locus genomic signatures of local adaptation to snow across the landscape in California populations of a willow leaf beetle. Proceedings of the Royal Society B. 290(2005). https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2023.0630

Keller, A.G., Grason, E. McDonald, P.S., Ramón-Laca, A., Kelly, R.P. (2022). Tracking an invasion front with environmental DNA. Ecological Applications. e2561. https://doi.org/10.1002/eap.2561

Keller, A.G., Apprill, A., Lebaron, P., Robbins, J., Romano, T., Overton, E., Yuan, R., Rong, Y., Pollara, S., Whalen, K. (2021). Characterizing the culturable surface microbiomes of diverse marine animals. FEMS Microbiology Ecology. 97, fiab040. https://doi.org/10.1093/femsec/fiab040

Honors and Awards

Department of Energy Computational Science Graduate Fellowship (2023-2027)

McKernan Award for Most Outstanding Thesis (U. Washington, 2021)

Irving Finger Prize in Biology (Haverford College, 2017)