During her internship, Elyssa worked with threatened and endangered coastal species on Long Island under the Southampton Town Trustees. Elyssa monitored and established protection measures for shorebirds such as the piping plover, the least tern, the common tern, the American oystercatcher and the black skimmer, as well as two plant species, seabeach amaranth and seabeach knotweed. Protection measures included the use of symbolic string fencing, snow fencing, and predator exclosures. Elyssa evaluated the effectiveness of the exclosures on piping plover breeding success by analyzing monitoring data that had been collected over the past five years. The results, which advocate for responsible and strategic exclosure use, have been distributed to various conservation agencies across Long Island.