Jeff is a former faculty member at Duke University where he conducted research on forest ecology and climate change; taught courses in ecology, forestry, and wildlife surveys; and coordinated and conducted bird, herp, and butterfly surveys across North Carolina. He moved to Montana in 2014 and spent 3 years establishing the MPG Ranch butterfly monitoring program near Missoula, until moving back to North Carolina by 2017. He is currently a Research Specialist at Georgetown University working with Leslie Ries in the Butterfly Informatics Lab, coordinating and supporting butterfly monitoring programs across the continent through PollardBase and The North American Butterfly Monitoring Network. In 2023, Jeff launched the Carolinas Butterfly Monitoring Program, a community science effort to monitor butterfly populations across both North and South Carolina.