In 2024, Dr. Brooks took a Postdoctoral Research Associate position in the Center for Limnology in the College of Letters and Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Dr. Brooks is an evolutionary ecologist. His research combines theory and quantitative methods to address challenges in conservation science. He primarily works with reptiles and amphibians, and some of his past research projects include conducting a population viability assessment for flatwoods salamanders, investigating the adaptive significance of cannibalism in Eastern hellbenders, and exploring the evolutionary history of live-birth in snakes and lizards.
Dr. Brooks was a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Fish and Wildlife Conservation at Virginia Tech studying the evolution of life on land. He is interested in the contrasting pressures experienced in aquatic and terrestrial environments, and how those pressures shape vertebrate life histories. His work seeks to develop a framework to predict the susceptibility of different life-history strategies to novel threats and prioritize conservation efforts around the globe.
Dr. Brooks served on the recovery team for flatwoods salamanders, runs workshops for graduate students on Inclusive Pedagogy, and teaches undergraduate courses in Herpetology, Natural History Collections, and Wildlife Field Biology.
Last updated June of 2025.
