Alumni Spotlight: Amanda Lyons |
 | As an undergraduate and Master’s student in the Kartzinel Lab from 2017-2021, Amanda Lyons pursued her fascination with turtles that helped shape her scientific career. Amanda’s research began with a regional population genetics project and eventually culminated in a publication on the genetics of diamondback terrapin populations across the northeastern portion of their range—a previously neglected area with significant conservation potential. After graduating from Brown, Amanda spent three years working with terrapins, horseshoe crabs, birds, and other coastal species while mentoring cohorts of undergraduates at The Wetlands Institute in New Jersey. She is now on an exciting journey as a writer, artist, and entrepreneur. |
Research Accomplishments
Amanda’s terrapin genetics project is a wonderful example of how student research sometimes takes a program in unexpected directions.
What began as a personal area of interest grew into an Honors thesis and then a Master’s project, surviving COVID disruptions, sequencing delays, changes in analytical approaches, and an extended effort to publish the work after graduation. Amanda continued refining the analyses and manuscript while working full-time at The Wetlands Institute until it was accepted for publication in the Journal of Heredity—nearly eight years after the project was first conceived
What began as a personal area of interest grew into an Honors thesis and then a Master’s project, surviving COVID disruptions, sequencing delays, changes in analytical approaches, and an extended effort to publish the work after graduation. Amanda continued refining the analyses and manuscript while working full-time at The Wetlands Institute until it was accepted for publication in the Journal of Heredity—nearly eight years after the project was first conceived
After working on the project for so many years after graduation, seeing it finally published was incredibly gratifying | Amanda recently wrote about this journey in A Turtle Path: The Long Scramble from Conceptualization to Publication on the AGA Blog. Ever an impressive role model to early-career researchers, Amanda reflects on the many serendipitous events, challenges, and small victories that eventually brought the project to publication. As she puts it, turtles are not slow—they are patient, saving their energy for the right place and time. |
The project also helped launch Amanda new initiatives revolving around the spatial ecology of wildlife. At The Wetlands Institute, she used radio telemetry to investigate habitat selection by nesting diamondback terrapins, leading to a publication on diamondback terrapin movements.
Across more than seven summers affiliated with The Wetlands Institute, Amanda encountered thousands of nesting terrapins along roads, helping them safely reach their destinations. When nesting turtles were killed by vehicles on the road, Amanda recovered hundreds of eggs that could be saved, incubated, and returned to the wild as hatchlings. She also worked with the reTURN the Favor initiative to understand and mitigate human impacts on spawning horseshoe crabs.
As her responsibilities grew, Amanda became the Research and Conservation Coordinator of the Wetlands Institute, managing the program’s undergraduate research internships. She mentored 14 interns across 17 projects involving terrapins, coastal birds, horseshoe crabs, tree frogs, barnacles, and salt-marsh plants—helping them develop research questions, design studies, analyze data, create maps, write grants, and communicate their findings.
Across more than seven summers affiliated with The Wetlands Institute, Amanda encountered thousands of nesting terrapins along roads, helping them safely reach their destinations. When nesting turtles were killed by vehicles on the road, Amanda recovered hundreds of eggs that could be saved, incubated, and returned to the wild as hatchlings. She also worked with the reTURN the Favor initiative to understand and mitigate human impacts on spawning horseshoe crabs.
As her responsibilities grew, Amanda became the Research and Conservation Coordinator of the Wetlands Institute, managing the program’s undergraduate research internships. She mentored 14 interns across 17 projects involving terrapins, coastal birds, horseshoe crabs, tree frogs, barnacles, and salt-marsh plants—helping them develop research questions, design studies, analyze data, create maps, write grants, and communicate their findings.
A Fearless, Exploratory Mindset
Amanda is quintessentially curious. She encourages students to cultivate an exploratory mindset by spending time simply observing the natural world—something we all should strive to do more often. An observation we make on a walk in nature might evolve into a life-changing research question—or a poem, or a drawing, or a story.
That approach serves Amanda well in her science as well as in her conservation, writing, and entrepreneurship efforts. It helped her take on unfamiliar responsibilities at The Wetlands Institute, where she supported a remarkably broad array of programs, and it is now helping her navigate an entirely different kind of challenge as she builds a business of her own.
In autumn 2024, Amanda left The Wetlands Institute to make room to foster some of her long-term creative ambitions. Amanda's website offers essays and poetry, as well as a regular series of reflections on nature, martial arts, and exploring the outdoors. She has also established a fantastic Waterfowl Wakes Apparel & Gifts shop, which is an independent design business featuring her wildlife illustrations and photography—you have to love the "ungovernable terrapin" (Be ungovernable!).
Amanda has recently completed her first book in her plans for a thirteen-novel sword-and-sorcery series. Although these kinds of efforts are often thought of as distinct from population genetics or field ecology, Amanda finds that interesting observations, an experimental mindset, and a willingness to follow one’s curiosity wherever it leads are characteristics that can us to success across these fronts. Once her current projects are well established, she hopes to pursue a doctorate and return to research that makes a difference.
That approach serves Amanda well in her science as well as in her conservation, writing, and entrepreneurship efforts. It helped her take on unfamiliar responsibilities at The Wetlands Institute, where she supported a remarkably broad array of programs, and it is now helping her navigate an entirely different kind of challenge as she builds a business of her own.
In autumn 2024, Amanda left The Wetlands Institute to make room to foster some of her long-term creative ambitions. Amanda's website offers essays and poetry, as well as a regular series of reflections on nature, martial arts, and exploring the outdoors. She has also established a fantastic Waterfowl Wakes Apparel & Gifts shop, which is an independent design business featuring her wildlife illustrations and photography—you have to love the "ungovernable terrapin" (Be ungovernable!).
Amanda has recently completed her first book in her plans for a thirteen-novel sword-and-sorcery series. Although these kinds of efforts are often thought of as distinct from population genetics or field ecology, Amanda finds that interesting observations, an experimental mindset, and a willingness to follow one’s curiosity wherever it leads are characteristics that can us to success across these fronts. Once her current projects are well established, she hopes to pursue a doctorate and return to research that makes a difference.
A Turtle's Path 🐢
Amanda’s story seems like it will always keep returning to turtles. In 2021, she began a radio telemetry study at The Wetlands Institute. The first turtle she captured for the project—and the last one she caught when the study ended in 2024—was a female that the interns nicknamed “Bestie.” Amanda's favorite turtle, Bestie remains a reminder of the many individual animals behind the datasets, maps, and manuscripts that have defined Amanda's career so far.
Amanda hopes that Bestie is still out there somewhere, living a long life among the fiddler crabs, small snails, and seagrass. I hope she is living a life ungovernable.
We are proud of everything that Amanda has accomplished as a scientist, grateful for her willingness and ability to persevere through hardship, and excited to see where her curiosity takes her next.
Amanda hopes that Bestie is still out there somewhere, living a long life among the fiddler crabs, small snails, and seagrass. I hope she is living a life ungovernable.
We are proud of everything that Amanda has accomplished as a scientist, grateful for her willingness and ability to persevere through hardship, and excited to see where her curiosity takes her next.
Accomplishments & Milestones
- Journal of Heredity: Levels and partitioning of genetic variation of northeastern populations of diamondback terrapin (Malaclemys terrapin)
- Animal Biotelemetry: Conservation implications of habitat selection by nesting diamondback terrapins (Malaclemys terrapin) investigated via an automated radio telemetry system
- The Wetlands Institute: Research and Conservation Coordinator, 2022–2024; mentored 14 undergraduate interns across 17 research projects.
- Waterfowl Wakes: An independent wildlife-inspired apparel and gifts business
- Coastlines and Clear Gray Skies: Amanda's creative writing substack
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