M ATTHEW E.

F ERTAKOS
312B Holdsworth Hall, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst MA 01003
mfertakos@umass.edu
E DUCATION
2021 - Present University of Massachusetts Amherst
PhD Candidate
Organismic and Evolutionary Biology
Expected Graduation Spring 2026
2015 - 2019 The College of New Jersey, Ewing, NJ
B.S. in Biology; Minor in Sexuality and Queer Studies
Graduation: May 2019
GPA: 3.67/4.0 (Cum Laude)
F ELLOWSHIPS, AWARDS, AND RECOGNITION
2023 - Present NSF Graduate Research Fellowship ($123,000)
2023 Lotta M. Crabtree Fellow in Production Agriculture ($12,410)
2021 - 2023 Northeast Climate Adaptation Science Center Fellowship
2019 Undergraduate Research Prize from The American Society of Plant Taxonomists
2019 The College of New Jersey Biology Departmental Honors
2015 - 2019 Honors Program, The College of New Jersey

P EER - REVIEWED PUBLICATIONS

Evans, A.E., W.G. Pfadenhauer, D.M. Buonaiuto, M.E. Fertakos, C.J. Brown-Lima, T.L.
Morelli. The future of biocontrol in the Anthropocene: A review of climate change impacts on
biocontrol agents and their hosts. In prep.
Buonaiuto, D.M., A.E. Evans, M.E. Fertakos, W.G. Pfadenhauer, J. Salva, and B.A. Bradley.
2023. Phylogenetic relationships of invasive plants are useful criteria for weed risk
assessments. Conservation Letters. doi: 10.1111/conl.12979
Beaury, E.M., J. Allen, A. Evans, M.E. Fertakos, W.G. Pfadenhauer, and B.A. Bradley. 2023.
Horticulture could facilitate invasive plant range infilling and several cases of range expansion
with climate change. Bioscience. doi: 10.1093/biosci/biad069
Fertakos, M.E., E.M. Beaury, N.R. Ford, and B.A. Bradley. 2022. Historical plant sales
database (HPS): Documenting the spatiotemporal history of native and introduced plant sales in
the conterminous U.S. Ecology. doi: 10.1002/ecy.4106
Laginhas, B.B, M.E. Fertakos, and B.A. Bradley. 2022. We don’t know what we’re missing –
evidence of a vastly undersampled invasive plant pool. Ecological Applications. doi:
10.1002/eap.2776
Fertakos, M.E. and W.L. Clement. 2021. Tracking phenology over 125 years among native flora
of the New Jersey Pine Barrens. The Journal of the Torrey Botanical Society. doi:
10.3159/TORREY-D-20-0046.1
Spriggs, E.L., and M.E. Fertakos. 2021. Evolution of Castanea in North America: restriction-
site-associated DNA sequencing and ecological modeling reveal a history of radiation, range
 shifts, and disease. The American Journal of Botany. doi: 10.1002/ajb2.17
P RESENTATIONS
2023 Fertakos, M.E., M.S. Itter, B.A. Bradley. Informing climate-smart adaptation of
northeastern plant communities using joint species distribution modeling: A case
study of American Chestnut (Castanea dentata). Species on the Move 2023
International Conference. Bonita Springs, Florida. Poster.
2023 Fertakos, M.E. Creating a climate smart horticultural industry. Northeast RISCC’s
2023 Symposium. Virtual oral presentation.
2022 Fertakos, M.E., E.M. Beaury, and B.A. Bradley. How we got here: Uncovering a
consistent history of non-native plant sales across the United States. Ecological
Society of America’s 2022 National Conference. Montréal, Canada. Oral
presentation.
2019 Fertakos, M.E. The power of herbarium specimens: An exploration in
species distribution modeling and phenology. Honors Thesis Departmental
Seminar at The College of New Jersey. Oral presentation.
2019 Fertakos, M.E., E.L. Spriggs, and W.L. Clement. The power of herbarium
specimens: An exploration in species distribution modeling and phenology.
Botany 2019, Tucson, Arizona. Poster.
2019 Fertakos, M.E., E.L. Spriggs, and W.L. Clement. The power of herbarium
specimens: An exploration in species distribution modeling and phenology. EPiC
Evolution in Philadelphia Conference, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Poster.
2018 Fertakos, M.E., L. Zhang, and A.K. Lee. Insights from 125 years in the past:
Using historical specimens to study plant phenology in Mercer County, NJ. Mid-
Atlantic Chapter of the Ecological Society of America Annual Conference, Newark,
New Jersey. Poster.
P ROFESSIONAL E XPERIENCE AND S ERVICE
2023-Present DEIJ Committee Member – the Northeast Climate Adaptation Science Center
• Assess and support DEIJ efforts within NECASC.
2021-Present Leadership Team Member – the Northeast Regional Invasive Species and
Climate Change Management Network (https://www.risccnetwork.org).
• Collaborative group of academic and government researchers, and
natural resource managers working to synthesize and communicate
relevant science at the intersection of invasion biology and climate
change to our network of policy makers, managers, and the public.
2021-Present Writer/Editor, Vice President, That’s Life [Science] Blog (thatslifesci.com)
• Graduate student blog that synthesizes interesting science topics for the
general public.
T EACHING AND M ENTORING
Fall 2023 NSF GRFP Mentor, Office of Professional Development, UMass Amherst
Ran a workshop on constructing an NSF GRFP application and served as a mentor to
current applicants by providing feedback on application materials.
Spring 2023 Teaching Assistant, Introduction to GIS (500-level), Dept. of Env. Conservation,
UMass Amherst
Administered labs, answered questions, graded midterms and final projects, and hosted
office hours and help sessions.
2022-Present Student Mentor
Mentor students in biogeography research. Students have gained skills coding in
R, managing large datasets, presenting, and writing.
Students: Dylan Quirk, Suvi Birch, Trista Dearstyne, James Tsalah
O UTREACH PUBLICATIONS
RISCC Management Challenges – Syntheses of the current state of knowledge on topics
related to invasive species and climate change to aid managers and stakeholders.
Putnam, A., M. Nelson, W. Pfadenhauer, M. Fertakos, and A. Suzzi. Marine Mischief:
Salt marshes, climate change, and invasive species, oh my! 2022.
https://doi.org/10.7275/b5c2-np62
Evans, A., D. Buonaiuto, M. Fertakos, T.L. Morelli, W. Pfadenahuer, C. Brown Lima.
Out of control? The effects of climate change on biological control agents and their
target hosts. 2023.
RISCC Research Summaries – Summaries of current research papers to aid manager and
stakeholder decision making.
Fertakos, M.E. 2022. Out of the blue: New nuisance neonative may invade the Gulf of
Maine. Summary of Johnson et al. 2015. https://www.risccnetwork.org/johnson-
2015?rq=swimmer
Fertakos, M.E. 2023. Fizzing out: Increasing CO2 levels dimmish biocontrol of invasive
tropical soda apple. Summary of Diaz et al. 2012.
That’s Life [Science] Blog Posts
Fertakos, M.E. 2022. The story of chestnuts in North America: How a forest giant
disappeared from American forests and culture. http://thatslifesci.com/2022-03-03-
AmericanChestnuts-mfertakos/
P ROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS
The Ecological Society of America (ESA) 2018 - Present
The Strides Collective – Founding Associate Member
Philadelphia, PA based non-profit theatre company focusing on uplifting underrepresented voices
through queer storytelling. https://www.stridescollective.com/
S KILLS
• Programming languages – R statistical Software (Ecological modeling, web-scraping, data
management)
• Software – Microsoft Office, Google Suite, ArcGIS, QGIS, Adobe Illustrator
• Languages - Conversational German