Matthew M. Smith, Ph.D.

Matt is an Assistant Research Professor with the Caesar Kleberg Wildlife Research Institute and a member of the Spatial and Population Ecology of Carnivores (SPEC) Lab at Texas A&M-Kingsville. He received a Bachelor of Science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a Master of Science at Washington State University. His M.S. research developed and implemented novel environmental DNA approaches and modeled occupancy and species interactions of an at-risk amphibian in the Great Basin. He then received his doctorate from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and researched the mechanisms that may facilitate species recovery of American marten along their southern range boundary. Before joining CKWRI in 2024, Matt was a post-doc at UW-Madison working on how the consumption of human food subsidies impacts the foraging, movement, and demographics of black bears. His research interests are broad and always evolving, but a central theme is how wildlife responds to environmental change from individual responses to populations and communities. To answer these questions, he draws on a background including spatial ecology, genetics, stable isotopes, and simulations.