Dr. Sonsthagen joined the Nebraska Cooperative Fish & Wildlife Research Unit in 2020 from the U.S. Geological Survey Alaska Science Center where she studied the evolutionary relationships among Arctic vertebrate populations. Dr. Sonsthagen was a post-doctoral fellow at the Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of Natural History and National Zoo, awarded her Ph.D. in Biological Sciences from University of Alaska Fairbanks, M.S. in Zoology from Brigham Young University, and B.S. in Biology from University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. Her research focuses on investigating ecological drivers of connectivity and adaptive capacity of species of conservation concern using both field- and laboratory-based methods. Movement underlies many key processes in ecology and evolution and is critical for species response to environmental change, as such, she applies population and community driven approaches to evaluate genomic and demographic connectivity across the landscape, adaptive capacity, and the influence of species biology in shaping spatial and temporal genomic diversity to inform management decisions. Dr. Sonsthagen has taught Population genetics, Application of genomics in conservation, and Ornithology.