Sam is an ecologist broadly interested in how environmental variation influences the composition, structure, and functioning of interactive biological communities. He considers himself a community ecologist, but his research extends into physiological, population, and ecosystem ecology as well. Most of his research takes place in aquatic ecosystems and he enjoys working with lake and pond pelagic food webs. He incorporates field observations, short-term lab experiments, and mathematical models to address his research questions. Sam received his Ph.D. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from Dartmouth College in 2014, and is currently a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Yale University.