Principal Investigator

 Assistant Professor of Wetland Plant Ecology
Ph.D. Michigan State University

Jason Martina is an assistant professor at Texas State University in San Marcos, TX (started fall 2019). His primary research interests involve better understanding global change phenomena in wetland and grassland ecosystems. Before coming to Texas State, he was the program coordinator of the EEB and ABS programs at Texas A&M University and an adjunct faculty member in the Department of Ecosystem Science and Management. He received his Ph.D. at Michigan State University with Drs. Steve Hamilton and Merritt Turetsky and completed a postdoc at the University of Michigan with Drs. Deborah Goldberg and Bill Currie.
TXST Faculty Webpage

Current Graduate Students

Tilak Chaudhary
Tilak is a Ph.D. student at Texas State University (started Spring 2022). He received his M.Sc. in Biology (2021) from Texas A&M University Kingsville (TAMUK), M.Sc. in Forest Sciences and Forest Ecology (2015) from the University of Goettingen (Germany), and B.Sc. in Forestry (2010) from Tribhuvan University (Nepal). During his master’s thesis at TAMUK, he investigated the short- and long-term effects of drought on the forest ecosystem in East Texas. His general research interest lies in sustainable ecosystem management under changing global climate and disturbance regimes. He is particularly interested in understanding changes in plant community structure and species composition at different spatial scales due to climate change and natural and anthropogenic disturbances. He uses GIS, remote sensing, fieldwork, and modeling tools in his research. He worked with different national and international organizations in Nepal for more than five years in the field of natural resource management, climate change, human-wildlife conflict, and biodiversity conservation.

Megan Herod
Megan is a second-year MS student working on Arundo donax, an invasive wetland plant in Texas. She received her BS from the University of North Texas in ecology and environmental science. While completing her undergraduate work, Megan worked with the Army Corps of Engineers, assisting with wetland restoration projects and invasive species research.

​Brianna Fogel
Brianna is a second-year MS student at Texas State interested in biodiversity loss and the conservation of endangered species. Currently, she is working with two endangered plant species in East Texas, Leavenworthia texana and Physaria pallida, using ecological niche modeling to find new potential populations, which will then be included in a long-term monitoring program. She received her BS from The University of Texas at Austin in E.E.B., where she worked on geometric morphometrics of North American frogs and gut microbiotas of pollen feeding beetles.

Traci Foulkes
​Traci received her B.A. in Geography from the University of Texas at Austin. She is a second-year M.S. student studying the effects of restoration on carbon storage in diverse grassland ecosystems. Traci has been working as a conservation specialist for the greater part of the past decade conducting endangered species habitat management and surveys, flora and fauna surveys, water quality tests and prairie restoration in Central Texas. 

Jenna DeMent
Jenna is a first-year MS student at Texas State University working on remote sensing of the invasive species Arundo donax. After receiving her BS in Biology and Ecology at Texas A&M University – Corpus Christi, she spent several years working with state agencies and NGOs assisting with various habitat management practices throughout the United States.

Anthony Omofoma
​Anthony is a MS student studying the influence of seasonality and land use change on water quality in the Pecan Bayou watershed in central Texas using multivariate statistical methods and GIS analysis. He received his BSc in Biotechnology from Enugu State University (Nigeria). Anthony has 7 years of experience in data analytics through various projects and industries including corporate banking and technology companies. ​

Current Undergraduate Students

David Molnar
David recently graduated from Texas State with a BS degree in wildlife biology. During his time as an undergrad he worked as a field technician studying the roosting ecology of evening bats and parameterized A. donax and other species of interest for the Mondrian model. He was also an officer for the Bat Association at Texas State. Currently he is helping with a TPWD funded project mapping A. donax in Native Fish Conservation Areas throughout Texas .

Sydney Scace
Sydney Scace is a senior at Texas State University working towards a B.S in Microbiology with a minor in Biochemistry. She is highly involved within the Texas State community as president of Plant Biology Society and a third year Resident Assistant within the Department of Housing and Residential Life. Sydney is developing a plant-soil feedback experiment with Johnsongrass (Sorghum halepense) for her independent study project.

Alex Badgwell
Alex recently received her BS in wildlife biology at Texas State University. While working on her undergrad degree she worked with many organizations including Texas Parks and Wildlife, The International Crane Foundation, and The Wildlife Society. She is currently working on a clonal growth allocation project in the Martina lab.

Andrew Martinez
Andrew is a junior at Texas State University, working on a bachelor’s degree in Wildlife Biology. He has spent the majority of this time in the lab helping with soil coring and processing for a soil carbon project at the LBJ Wildflower Center in south Austin. 

Ryan Kridler
Ryan is a senior undergraduate student working on his B.S. in Wildlife Biology at Texas State University. He is the vice president of the Plant Biology Society at Texas State, and his extracurricular work focuses on plant ecology and herpetology. He is currently performing research on plant clonal growth allocation in the Martina Lab

Emily Horan
Emily is a junior Wildlife Biology major at Texas State University. She is currently helping with various projects in the lab, including Nutrient Network fieldwork, a greenhouse experiment investigating clonal allocation in plants, and research on carbon storage in grasslands at the LBJ Wildflower Center.
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Courtney Velasquez
Courtney is a senior at Texas State University working on her bachelors degree in Wildlife Biology. She has completed numerous volunteer projects and participates in several Texas State organizations such as the Plant Biology Society and the Wildlife Society. She continues to aid the various projects of the lab while also diverging to work on her own honors thesis.

Lab Alumni

James Caulfield (Undergraduate - Texas State)
Claudia Arias (Undergraduate - Texas State)
Sabrina Sanders (Undergraduate - Texas State)
Grace Vielleux (Undergraduate - Texas A&M)
Aaron Banks (Undergraduate - Texas A&M)
Ryan Doner (Undergraduate - Texas A&M)
Michael Behrendt (Undergraduate - Texas A&M)
Ramiro Ramirez (Undergraduate - Our Lady of the Lake University)
Alejandro Ramirez (Undergraduate - Our Lady of the Lake University)
Sydney Coulter (Undergraduate - Our Lady of the Lake University)
Danielle Herrera (Undergraduate - Our Lady of the Lake University)