Wildlife Tracking System

Dr Rob Maher - The adviser for the wildlife tracker, Dr. Rob Maher joined the Montana State ECE faculty in August, 2002. He holds a BS degree from Washington University in St. Louis, an MS degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and a Ph.D. from the University of Illinois-Urbana, all in Electrical Engineering. His research and teaching interests are in the area of digital signal processing, with particular emphasis on applications in digital audio, audio forensic analysis, digital music synthesis, and acoustics. Dr. Maher became ECE Department Head on August 1, 2007.

Dr Scott Creel - The sponsor for the wildlife tracking system Scott and his wife Nancy studied African wild dogs in the Selous Game Reserve. At roughly 80,000 square kilometers, the Selous is one of the largest protected areas in the world, but its ecology is still little-studied. This project focused initially on simply assessing the size of the wild dog population in Selous and progressed to identifying the ecological factors that cause wild dogs to be endangered, attaining uniformly low densities in comparison to other large carnivores that are well-protected by Tanzania's system of parks and reserves. They also used demographic data to make quantitative assessments of extinction risk, and collected a substantial data set on prey selection, predator-prey interactions and the costs/benefits of cooperative hunting. Finally they examined social evolution and behavioral and endocrine mechanisms of reproductive suppression in wild dogs, in a manner similar to our earlier work with dwarf mongooses.

Gavin Swietnicki - He was born in Jacksonville, Florida then moved to Havre, MT when he was 13 where he attended high school at Havre High. He attended college at UM in Missoula for two years until he transferred to MSU to pursue an Electrical Engineering degree. He enjoys the baseball and the Stooges- Fun House in his spare time.

Ryan Maroney - He was born in Green River, Wyoming, but moved to Bozeman when he was 8 years old. He grew up and attended high school in Bozeman, and was always most interested in math and science. He worked as a laborer for Matzinger Electric following high school, which solidified his interest in the electrical field. He worked here for over three years while studying Electrical Engineering at MSU, and has also interned for Western Area Power Administration. He is currently an Engineering Intern for Morrison & Maierle in Bozeman. His interests include power systems, power generation, and electrical design for building construction. He is an avid hunter and outdoorsman in his free time.

Chris Kravchenko - He is a senior Electrical Engineering student at Montana State University. He started his college career in 2011 and is due to graduate in May 2015. His curriculum focuses mainly on electro-magnetics, controls and communication technologies. In addition he worked in nano-optics lab for Wataru Nakagawa and had 2 summer internships with Verizon Wireless which provided him with hands-on experience in mobile networks. This experience will be put to use while working on the Wildlife Tracking System project which utilizes communication systems.

Kristopher Kenney - After taking several years off from high school at Billings Senior High Kristopher joined the Army as a communication specialist and worked as a military police officer for two years. He then worked as an information systems technician fro several years prior to attending school at MSU Billings part time. He later transferred to MSU Bozeman to finish his degree in EELE. He spent the previous summer working for the BoR in Hungry Horse Montana at the hydro-power station where he plans to continue once he graduates.