Program Contacts

Dr. Franklin Percival Program Leader The Florida Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit’s objectives are research, graduate education and technical assistance within the overarching mission of study of wetlands in the state. As such, Dr. H. Franklin Percival’s principal focus for the last 28 years has been on ecology of wetland species and, principally, the American alligator. At the same time, he has an interest in team and collaborative research and served as facilitator and team leader on numerous collaborative or interdisciplinary studies. For the last 10 years, he has led an interdisciplinary, interagency team of engineers, scientists and managers in the development of unmanned aerial systems to assess wildlife habitats and populations. Percival was a founder of the Southeast Adaptive Management Group and the Program for Environmental Statistics, interagency groups designed to enhance capabilities in biostatistics, population ecology, and structured decision making among Unit cooperators.	[email] (352) 846-0543
Matthew Burgess Program Coordinator Matt is a wildlife ecologist with the Florida Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit at the University of Florida (UF). He received his M.Sc. in Interdisciplinary Ecology from UF in 2008. Mr. Burgess is also program coordinator of the UF Unmanned Aircraft System Wildlife Project; a multidisciplinary team of aerospace engineering, geomatics, and ecology faculty and graduate students developing a small unmanned aircraft system for ecological research and habitat assessments.	[email] (352) 318-1615
Dr. Peter Ifju Aerospace Engineer Dr. Peter Ifju is an expert in the areas of micro air vehicles (design, fabrication, system integration, applications, and experimental characterization), experimental stress analysis, optical methods for stress analysis (moir interferometry, luminescent photoelastic coatings), and composite materials stress analysis and fabrication. The University of Florida MAV Team, lead by Dr. Ifju, won first place overall in the International MAV Competition in 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006. In 2000 Discovery magazine granted Dr. Ifju a Top Ten Technology Innovation Award for Micro Air Vehicle Development.	[email] (352) 392-6744
Dr. Bon Dewitt Photogrammetry Bon is the Director of the Geomatics Program and coauthor of the widely-used textbook, “Elements of Photogrammetry – With Applications in GIS.” His research interests include computational photogrammetry and digital image matching. Dr. Dewitt and his students have led the effort to enable geographic positioning and referencing (georeferencing) to images collected by the UAV. One result of this effort has been a software program that collects individual frames from video and automatically generates a photomosaic.	[email] (352) 392-6010
Dr. Scot Smith Image Processing Dr. Smith started working on the UF UAV project in 1995 as part of the Florida GAP Analysis project. He is a professor of Geomatics in the SFRC and specializes in remote sensing, image processing and GIS. He is responsible for senor suite development and image processing on the UAV project. Scot's interests include application of a variety of remote sensing approaches to environmental assessment. His long-term experience includes work in hydrological processes and the use of remote sensing in water resources protection and management.	[email] (352) 392-4990
John Perry Geomatics John graduated from the Geomatics program in August 2007. He is currently completing his Master's degree in Geomatics. John's work is focused in the area of navigation and signal processing to develop new direct georeferencing algorithms on lightweight mobile platforms.	[email]
Dr. Peter Frederick Research Professor, WEC Dr. Peter Frederick is a Research Professor in the Department of Wildlife Ecology and Conservation at the University of Florida. He is interested in the ecology, management and restoration of wetlands, and especially in the roles that vertebrates can play in ecological function. He has worked intensively in the Everglades, and has studied the dynamics of long legged wading bird populations for 25 years. He has also studied tropical and subtropical wetlands extensively, in Brasil, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Honduras, and the Kingdom of Bhutan. Current interests are in the effects of contaminants on reproductive biology, restoration of large wetland complexes, and how large birds select wetlands at a landscape scale. Dr. Frederick has recently joined with the UAV team on surveys performed in South Florida.	[email]
Spencer Ingley Program Technician Spencer is currently finishing his B.S. in Wildlife Ecology and Conservation at the University of Florida. He joined the UAS team as the program technician in August of 2008, and continues to assist in various aspects related to the project. Spencer's research interests include evolutionary biology, ecology, and applications of GIS and niche modeling in conservation biology. Spencer has conducted high school and undergraduate field and lab research in Nicaragua, Ecuador, Seahorse Key Florida, and Utah, with upcoming trips planned to Costa Rica. Upon finishing his degree at UF, Spencer plans on pursuing a PhD in a related field of research.	[email]
Jon Morton Biologist, US Army Corps of Engineers Jon received his B.S. in Science from Mississippi State University in 2005. Since then, he has gained extensive experience in the field. John gained 7 years of experience with the USACE. He has also worked three and a half years as a biologist on Lake Okeechobee working with invasive aquatic plant management, native aquatic plant restoration and monitoring, and threatened and endangered species management. Jon has extensive experience working with both desktop and mobile versions of GIS software and handheld GPS equiptment for a variety of data collection and processing activities. Among these are vegetation mapping, aerial/satellite imagery processing, digitizing vector data, and customization of various GIS projects. Jon joined the UAS program to work in flight training and planning in 2008.	email (863) 983-8101 x 251
Jon S. Lane Invasive Species Biologist, USACE Jon has been working as an invasive species biologist with the Army Corps of Engineers for 10 years in Florida, both at Lake Okeechobee and in Jacksonville. He has been involved with various remote sensing methods to detect vegetation for 9 years.	[email] (904) 232-1044
John C. Simon Research Coordinator, WEC John has been a part the University of Florida’s Department of Wildlife Ecology and Conservation since 2004. He is currently Field Leader for the South Florida Wading Bird Project assessing nest numbers and reproductive success in tree island colonies throughout Water Conservation Areas 1, 2, and 3. John has studied the ecology, movements, or communication behavior of over 150 species during his nearly 30-year career and now hopes to demonstrate the UAS as a valuable avian research tool.	[email] (352) 745-2855
Zoltan Szantoi Geomatics Zoltan is working toward his PhD. degree in Geomatics. Hi is involved in the suite development for the UAV as well as in processing and analyzing the acquired images. His doctoral research is to develop methodology for efficient mapping of graminoid communities in the Everglades National Park.	[email]
Joshua Childs Josh is an electrical engineering masters student at the University of Florida. He received my undergraduate in electrical engineering for the University of Florida in 2008. His interests are in machine intelligence and embedded systems.	[email]
Larry E. Taylor	[email]
Ben E. Wilkinson	[email]
Thomas J. Rambo	[email]
Thomas J. Baker
Charles J. Hughes
Jason F. Panzarino