Forrest joined the Siler Lab in the summer of 2022 as a MS student. After graduating with a BS in zoology from Colorado State University in 2016, he worked with several state and federal agencies as a wildlife technician. During this time, he traveled across Colorado, California, New Mexico, and Wyoming. His work involved chasing reptiles across shrub steppe, tracking invasive owls through coastal forests, electrofishing down rivers, and climbing up to raptor nests in remote mountains.

Though he loved exploring public lands in support of wildlife management, Forrest also witnessed the conservation threats faced by under-monitored herpetofauna. He is interested in endangered reptile species’ population ecology and hopes to identify best conservation practices for wildlife management. His research will primarily involve rearing head-start Texas Horned Lizards at the OKC Zoo “Lizard Lab” and their post-release monitoring at Tinker Air Force Base.