Neil Balchan is an M.S. student at the University of Northern Colorado, where he studies resistance to desert massasauga and prairie rattlesnake venoms in a suite of co-occurring rodent prey species. In addition, he’s also involved in projects studying venom variation in the prairie rattlesnake, and systematics of the western rattlesnake clade. Neil is originally from Manitoba, Canada, where he worked on red-sided gartersnake movement ecology for his undergraduate research thesis at the University of Manitoba. He has also participated in and spearheaded several local herpetological monitoring projects for Manitoba at-risk species. His primary research interests encompass venomous snake systematics, venom variation, and snakebite.
To learn more about Neil’s research, connect with him here.