Tangled Bank Conservation was founded in 2016 by Dr. JJ Apodaca. Based in Asheville, North Carolina, Tangled Bank’s goal is to bring cutting-edge genomics tools to managers, make conservation insights more efficient, provide capacity to conservation efforts through planning and field work, and, above all, help imperiled species as quickly as possible.
The Team
JJ Apodaca is founder of Tangled Bank Conservation, and the Executive Director for the Amphibian and Reptile Conservancy. He received his B.S. in Biology at the University of South Florida in 2004 and his Ph.D. in Biology from the University of Alabama in 2010. His dissertation work focused on prioritizing areas important to the conservation of amphibians in the southeast at both the macro and micro scales. He has worked on numerous conservation projects across the country, helping some of the most imperiled species in the United States. This list includes the Red Hills Salamander, Bog Turtles, Green Salamanders, Hellbenders, Sicklefin Redhorse, Appalachian Cottontails, and several other species of conservation concern. His research combines multiple fields and methods (i.e. conservation genetics, habitat-modeling, life history studies, etc.) in order to develop and inform optimal conservation and management decisions. JJ served as the national chair for Partners in Amphibian and Reptile Conservation (PARC) for 4 years, working with various partners to push forward amphibian and reptile conservation.
Louisa Collins is the lab manager for Tangled Bank Conservation. Louisa has a BS from the University of Central Florida and a Master’s degree in Biology from Western Carolina University. Louisa excels at project organization, DNA extraction from difficult samples, PCR, qPCR, and library preparation for next generation sequencing. She has helped develop and carry out protocols for cutting edge library preparation techniques for threatened and endangered species.
Alex Krohn is the director of conservation genomics at Tangled Bank Conservation. He has a BA from Oberlin College, and a PhD from the University of California, Berkeley. His dissertation work focused on investigating patterns of convergent evolution in desert lizards, and analyzing degrees of inbreeding, population structure and migration in both captive and wild endangered Amargosa Voles. At TBC he has worked on conservation genomics analyses to identify confiscated Bog Turtles, delineating population structure in Alligator Snapping Turtles, evaluating the validity of subspecies of Pine Snakes, assessing hybridization and population structure in Appalachian Cottontails, and much more. He has been working with genomic datasets for 10 years now.