Pasan Samarasin

Background

About Pasan Samarasin

I am a conservation biologist with experience in aquatic biology, conservation ecology and genetics. Currently, I am a Recovery Planner with Fisheries and Oceans Canada Species at Risk Salmon team where I lead the Species at Risk Act processes and recovery planning for Fraser River Sockeye salmon populations assessed to be at-risk by Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC). Previously, I worked at the Pacific Salmon Commission (PSC) as the Stock Identification biologist, where I was responsible for conducting analyses to identify the origins of returning Sockeye and Pink salmon and research to improve stock identification methods. Before joining PSC, I was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Toronto at Scarborough, working on a collaborative project with the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Fisheries and Oceans Canada to optimize sampling fishes in wetlands, quantify fish diversity, model occupancy, detection probability, and abundance of fish species at risk in Ontario wetlands. I completed my PhD at University of Toronto with research focus on conservation biology & genetics, where I investigated effects of habitat change on fish diversity at different levels of biological organization (from populations to communities). For example, one of my projects investigated the effect of recent connectivity changes (e.g, fragmentation) on genetic estimates of population connectivity. Another project evaluated fish diversity and key ecological parameters in northern Canadian lakes that were affected by mining operations. My MSc. research was in the area of population genetics and molecular phylogenetics (MSc. University of Toronto). Expertise- Biodiversity science / Conservation biology - Statistical data analysis (multivariate statistics, categorical data, and mixed models)- Data analytics with Python programming and statistical analysis with R and SPSS - Simulation modelling, Occupancy modelling - Molecular Biology techniques - Microsatellites (STRs), SNPs, DNA sequence data analysis Please see my website for more information: https://sites.google.com/site/pasansamarasin/home