Election Candidates 2017

Tyler Black is the Eastern Region Aquatic Wildlife Diversity Research Coordinator with NC Wildlife Resources Commission (NCWRC) and has been with NCWRC since 2010. His current work focuses on imperiled crayfish, fish, freshwater mussels, and aquatic snails across five river basins in northeastern North Carolina. Recently, he has been working to bolster rare mussel populations, restore mussel habitat, and assess the status of several aquatic species in eastern North Carolina.

He received his B.S. degree in Biology and a minor in Wildlife and Fisheries Science from The Pennsylvania State University in 2004, a M.S. degree in Biology from Tennessee Technological University (TTU) in 2007, and a Ph.D. in Environmental Sciences from TTU in 2011. He has been an AFS member since 2005 and joined NCAFS in 2011; he also co-taught the 2015 NCAFS Continuing Education Workshop on Crayfish Identification. In his free time, Tyler enjoys chasing ditch crickets, backpacking, fly fishing, and hunting with family and friends.

Ryan Heise is a Senior Environmental Scientist with Duke Energy in Huntersville, NC where he has worked since August 2016. For the previous 13 years he worked for the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission as a Research Coordinator in the Aquatic Wildlife Diversity Program. He is also an adjunct assistant professor at North Carolina State University in the Department of Applied Ecology and serves on student committees. Ryan received his B.S. in marine biology from Texas A & M University, M.S. in biology from the University of West Florida, and at Ph.D. in biology from the University of Southern Mississippi. He has focused much of his work in North Carolina on the inventory, life history, and population status of freshwater fish and mussels, especially rare and endangered species, so that informed conservation and management actions can be made.

Ryan has been a member of the American Fisheries Society since 1999, has participated in several Southern Division committees, and has served as a presentation judge and moderator at multiple chapter meetings. He spends his free time with his family, enjoying the outdoors, and working on home improvement projects.

Kelsey Lincoln joined the NCWRC as the Assistant Fisheries Biologist for District 5 in October 2014.  Kelsey works closely with District Biologist Jessica Baumann and together the two of them manage over 30 lakes throughout the northcentral Piedmont region.

Kelsey grew up in the Midwest in Michigan where her interest in natural resources began at an early age as she explored the ponds in her backyard, camped for weeks each summer on the Little Muskegon River, spent her Easters snorkeling in Florida and her summer weekends “up north” exploring the Grand Traverse Bay.  In college she assisted a graduate student studying the effects of Zebra Mussels in the Great Lakes ecosystem before graduating in 2010 with a degree in Fisheries and Wildlife.  Shortly after graduating she joined the USGS as a student contractor and was launched into a project restoring spawning habitat for Lake Sturgeon and Lake Whitefish in the Detroit River.

Wanting to gain more experience in a different and warmer ecosystem, Kelsey moved to North Carolina to complete a project studying White Bass population dynamics and mechanisms influencing White Bass population declines.  She graduated with a MS in Fisheries, Wildlife, and Conservation Biology in 2014 and began her career with the NCWRC shortly after!  Kelsey currently lives in Durham, NC and enjoys hiking the Eno River with her dog Max, finding local swimming holes, traveling, and camping on the beach or in the mountains.

Katy Potoka is the District 1 Fisheries Biologist with the NC Wildlife Resources Commission, working in the northeastern portion of the state. Her current work focuses on management and research of resident sport fish populations in coastal rivers and lakes around the Albemarle Sound area and anadromous fish in the Roanoke and Chowan Rivers.  Some of her current work involves PBT methods for assessing stocking success of American Shad in the Roanoke River, River Herring in the Chowan River, and Largemouth Bass at Lake Mattamuskeet.

Katy comes to North Carolina from Ohio where she earned her B.S. degree in Environment and Natural Resources with a specialization in Wildlife and Fisheries Science from The Ohio State University in 2010.  During that time she worked for the Ohio Division of Wildlife at Old Woman Creek National Estuarine Research Reserve, which is the only freshwater estuary in the national program.  Upon graduating from OSU, Katy earned her M.S. degree in Fisheries Science from Tennessee Technological University, where her research involved developing occupancy models to describe distribution and status of the endangered Boulder Darter in the Elk River.  In her free time, Katy enjoys camping, hiking, fishing, and kayaking with her husband.