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Ryan L. Wong Arnott

Field Biology, Herpetology, Conservation Genomics

  • About Me!

    I am an experienced field herpetologist passionate about conservation. I’ve searched for frogs day and night from the alpine wetlands of the Sierra Nevadas to the lush rainforest El Yunque. A long distance driver, I have solo traveled dirt roads and tight city streets in 34 states (so far!).

    I researched with the Zamudio Lab at the University of Texas at Austin, working as an undergraduate and returning as lab manager.

    I love reptiles & amphibians & spiders & insects & all life on this plant. <3

Archbold Biological Station, Florida

I conducted disease surveys on frogs, catching every one I could to test them for three amphibian pathogens (Bd, Ranavirus, Perkinsea).

El Yunque National Forest, Puerto Rico

I collected samples for genetic analyses from common coquí (Eleutherodactylus coqui). This data will be used for a project examining coquí responses to climate change.

Sierra Nevada Mountains, California

I surveyed for endangered Yosemite toads (Anaxyrus canorus) and Sierra Nevada yellow-legged frogs (Rana sierrae) with the US Forest Service Sierra Nevada Amphibian Monitoring Team (SNAMPH).

The Earth provides everything we need and cares for us, we thank her by accepting her gifts and offering her something in return. It might be respect, spitting out her seeds so they might be dispersed, or actively caring for the land (which doesn’t mean the same thing as leaving it untouched!). People have lived off the land for all of human history, and only now is there a separation between us. I think of the animals as my siblings on this Earth.

I believe everything is connected, which is generally accepted in ecology, but I think it’s even broader. My awe for the natural world and art feed into each other. Science is divided into different fields but you cannot make any advancements in one field without knowledge of multiple other fields. People are influenced by all of our social, economic, cultural, and environmental conditions, including our relationship with the land.

Curriculum vitae

News

May – Oct 2025: Hunted invasive bullfrogs to aid in recovery efforts for Oregon spotted frogs in southern Washington.

March 2025: New pubs out! Coldspots and equitable collaboration in conservation genomic research, and Bd in black-spotted newt museum specimens.

Feb-Apr 2025: I solo road tripped across the east coast from Texas to Maine.

July 2024: Field work in Florida catching as many frogs as we can at Archbold Biological Station! I learned what happens when you become fully nocturnal.

April 2024: Field work in Puerto Rico catching a bunch of coquí in the jungle.

October 2023: Living on the floor of my friend’s dorm in Edinburgh, exploring the city and the Scottish Highlands.

June 2023: Moved to Sonora, CA to survey endangered frogs across the Sierras with the Forest Service for the summer!

May 2023: Graduated from UT Austin with my B.S. and traveled across continental southeast Asia in Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, and Cambodia.