Bio
Bryce Maxell grew up surrounded by a variety of farm animals and spent many hours dogsledding in the mountains of Utah. He completed a B.S. in Biology and a B.A. in Economics at the University of Puget Sound in 1994 where he studied the demography of kelp species in the Puget Sound and was an NAIA All-American swimmer. After his undergraduate degree, he received a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship for a yearlong independent study of the natural history of Australia and New Zealand in 1994 and 1995. Bryce completed his Ph.D. in Fish and Wildlife Biology in the Wildlife Biology Program at the University of Montana in 2009 where he completed a state-wide status assessment of, and constructed predicted habitat suitability models for, Montana's amphibian and reptile species and examined the population demographics of Columbia Spotted Frogs. Between 1996 and 2015, Bryce conducted field inventories for a variety of animal species in Montana. During his time in Montana he has authored or coauthored three books, a dozen peer reviewed publications, and 35-plus professional reports on amphibians, reptiles, bats, small terrestrial mammals, birds, terrestrial mollusks, and fish. Bryce is passionate about making biological information available to resource managers and the general public so that Montana's plants, animals, and terrestrial and aquatic communities can be appreciated by current and future generations and is excited to lead Heritage Program staff in this endeavor.
