Hello friend! My name is Sandy Slovikosky, and as of 2025 – 2026 I am a third-year biology PhD student at the University of Oxford, advised by Dr. Robert Montgomery. Previously I completed by MS degree at SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry, and my BS at the University of Arizona, both in wildlife management. I am also a certified Associate Wildlife Biologist with The Wildlife Society. It has been my passion from the time I was little to work with animals, and as I grew up I gradually came to learn about the threats numerous species face around the world. Thus my love of wildlife conservation was born. Moreover, I am driven to study nature because of my worldview as a Christian and love for God’s world. Big cats fascinate me in particular, though having grown up in the Sonoran Desert in Tucson, Arizona, I have a strong appreciation for many species. Some of my other interests and hobbies include sharing about Jesus and serving within the church, reading (I love fantasy), and hanging out with family and friends. I also enjoy traveling to other countries and learning new languages, given that I was born in Munich, Bavaria, have both the German and American citizenships, and would like to connect with more people around the globe by breaking down the language barrier!
When it comes to wildlife conservation, I am especially interested in fieldwork, research, and working with local communities to provide sustainable conservation outcomes. Thus, I intend to post on this blog any work that I am currently doing and have done. During high school I mostly used motion-activated trail cameras for my research and analyzed the resulting images and videos with software from the University of Arizona. Then during my undergraduate years I learned additional skills such as radio telemetry, small mammal trapping and handling, scientific writing, GPS navigation, and identification of various plant and animal species. In graduate school I learned further techniques in grant writing, peer reviewing, advanced statistics, geographic information systems, data modeling, project management, and coding in R and Google Earth Engine. I’ve also picked up a variety of soft skills, which includes collaborating with local people at my study sites to provide training opportunities in conservation practice and research. Additionally, I will be posting any experience that I’ve had in the field of natural resources through volunteering, internships, employment, and classes I’ve taken.
With regard to research, I am most interested in large carnivore ecology and conservation. For my PhD dissertation, I am studying the non-lethal impacts of wire snare poaching on African lions in Murchison Falls National Park, Uganda. This research entails measuring body condition and population density of lions in different areas of the park that vary in snare density. As part of this work, I am also assessing how large mammals respond to potential cues of human predation using both a literature review and artificial snares paired with camera traps. Prior to my PhD, I also wrote a Master’s thesis, which had two components. First, I used data from published studies to assess how the magnitude of livestock depredation by carnivores (ex. number of cattle killed) varies depending on the spatiotemporal scale at which the data are collected. Second, I used published data on leopard density estimates to build a model predicting how many leopards could potentially exist in the world.
Check out my LinkedIn, ResearchGate, and Google Scholar profiles too. My professional memberships include The Wildlife Society and the American Society of Mammalogists.
P.S. My parents have their own website as well: www.slovikosky.com. It mostly contains photos on gardening and wildlife, as well as some music and songs that my mother wrote herself. If you could check it out too I (and they) would much appreciate it! Moreover, special thanks to my mother for providing many photos on my site, and to my brother and father for helping me create this blog. I couldn’t have done it without you three!