I’m Morgan Barnes, a 4th year Ecology, Behavior and Evolution major, and a Conservation Biology minor.  I am passionate about endangered species conservation, and the Undergraduate Research Scholars Program has allowed me to pursue this passion through my research project.  My research focuses on endangered Hawaiian bird conservation, specifically of the Akikiki and the Akeeke, two endemic species of honeycreeper.  Both birds are critically endangered, to the point where the next step in conservation for the two species is to establish captive breeding programs from collected eggs.  My research specifically will be to help create predictive models using distribution analysis of the two species.  In order to create these models, previous sightings data was combined with environmental data analysis, to create maps showing the likelihood of encountering one of the birds at any given area.  The most important aspect of my research is that once the models are created, we will be field testing the predictions the models create.  Without field testing and confirmation, the models would be unusable.  Ultimately, the creation and testing of these models will allow for the collection of eggs, and creation of captive breeding programs to boost the populations of these critically endangered species.