Email: susan.bolden@yale.edu
Office: Greeley Laboratory, Room 119
Phone: (203) 432-5321
Fax: (203) 432-3929

EDUCATION

RESEARCH INTERESTS

Before coming to Yale as Dr. Skelly's research technician, my research interests focused on the ecology and conservation of freshwater mollusks, i.e. snails and mussels. During my years of schooling and beyond I have snorkeled down the Delaware river counting mussels, translocated threatened populations of a federally protected mussel species in Louisiana, and counted and identified thousands of snails from restored wetlands in northwestern Pennsylvania. Nowadays, I am just as likely to be identifying Pseudacris crucifer as Physa gyrina. As the technician for several ongoing projects, I work closely with all aspects of our research. My duties range from leading research crews during the spring/summer field surveys in CT and VT, to processing samples and dissecting snails and amphibians during the fall and winter.

I graduated from Allegheny College with a bachelor's degree in 1998, after researching invertebrate communities in restored wetlands with Dr. Scott Wissinger. I received my Master's degree from LSU in 2000, under the direction of Dr. Ken Brown. My thesis involved translocating Margartifera hembeli, a threatened freshwater mussel found only in Louisiana, and making recommendations to the Louisiana DOTD for future translocation procedures.

I am a native of Meyersdale, Pennsylvania, the maple syrup capital of the world (ok, maybe not "the" capital, but we do host the annual Pennsylvania Maple Festival). I enjoy kayaking, canoeing and basically anything that allows me to be outdoors, and hope to someday get paid for it, oh wait... I do.