After Humboldt, Allison went on to work as a research associate at Georgetown University and the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center.

  For her thesis, Allison studied barn owl response to wildfires in Napa Valley by monitoring nest boxes and placing GPS transmitters on owls. She used this information to analyze how nest box occupancy and barn owl hunting habitat selection vary depending on the degree to which habitats near a nest box burned. This has implications for barn owls’ potential to provide pest control as an ecosystem service in vineyards and can inform management in the face of wildfires that are increasingly affecting both people and natural areas.