Camila Timana Mendoza

Camila Timana Mendoza is a Ph.D. student in the Graduate Group in Ecology and part of the Johnson-Jeffres Lab. She is an environmental engineer from Peru. Her research investigates the effects of gold mining on aquatic ecosystems and local communities in the Peruvian Amazon, with particular interest in fish habitat use, movement, biodiversity, and mercury exposure. She examines how fish use rivers and mining-created ponds throughout their life histories, how hydrological connectivity influences these movements, and how fish are exposed to different levels of mercury over their lifetimes. She uses stable isotopes, fish eye-lens, mercury analysis, and other approaches to investigate fish movement and habitat use in post-mining landscapes. More broadly, she is interested in scientific research that can support the conservation and management of freshwater ecosystems in the Amazon.