Board of Directors

Mark Antoniewicz (he/him/his) is a strategic communications and stakeholder engagement specialist with a focus in sustainability, energy, and conservation. Over Mark’s 15-year professional career, he has been a change-agent and movement builder within the government, nonprofit, and corporate sectors. 

Mark is currently helping Google bolster their corporate leadership in energy and sustainability, leveraging its size and expertise to drive positive change. This includes helping build a movement to power the world’s electrical grids with 24/7 carbon-free energy, an imperative component to addressing global warming. 

Prior to helping Google, Mark served as the Director of Communications for Hip Hop Caucus, a national nonprofit that combines culture and policy to energize movements and empower communities impacted first and worst by injustice. While in this role, he conducted voter engagement in multiple election cycles and helped develop “Think 100%”, an award-winning multimedia climate justice platform focused on elevating the voices of young people and people of color.  

Mark moved to Hip Hop Caucus after serving two years as a political appointee within President Obama’s White House Council on Environmental Quality. As a member of the Public Engagement team, he helped diversify and mobilize stakeholder support for the administration’s historic commitment to protecting the environment and addressing climate change. Prior to the White House, Mark served in the Office of Small Business at the United States Department of Transportation, where his team worked to ensure that the nation’s small, minority, women, and veteran-owned businesses had opportunities to succeed within the transportation industry. Mark is a proud native of Madison, Wisconsin, and earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science and International Studies from the University of Connecticut. His favorite places to be are out in nature with his family and on the basketball court. Follow Mark on Twitter @M4RK4NTONIEWICZ and on LinkedIn. 

Julie Gorte is Senior Vice President for Sustainable Investing at Impax Asset Management LLC, the North American division of Impax Asset Management Group and investment adviser to Pax World Funds. She oversees environmental, social and governance-related research on prospective and current investments as well as the firm’s shareholder engagement and public policy advocacy. Julie is also a member of the Impax Gender Analytics team. Prior to joining the firm, Julie served as Vice President and Chief Social Investment Strategist at Calvert. Her experience before she joined the investment world in 1999 includes various roles. Julie spent nearly 14 years as Senior Associate and Project Director at the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment. Additionally, she has held the roles of Vice President for Economic and Environmental Research at The Wilderness Society, and Program Manager for Technology Programs in the Environmental Protection Agency’s policy office and Senior Associate at the Northeast-Midwest Institute.

Julie serves on the boards of the Endangered Species Coalition, E4theFuture, Clean Production Action and is the board chair of the Sustainable Investments Institute. Julie received a Ph.D. and Master of Science in resource economics from Michigan State University and a Bachelor of Science in forest management at Northern Arizona University.

 

Dr. Nichole Keway Biber is a tribal citizen of the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians (Waganakising Odawa). Nichole serves on the Board of the Anishinaabek Caucus, where she helps to advance issues of importance to Indigenous communities, including her work as the lead of the Wolf and Wildlife Preservation Team. A longtime grassroots activist who focuses on environmental justice as the foundational site of healing, she is also a Water Protector, jingle dress dancer, and organic home gardener. Nichole is also appointed to the East Lansing Parks and Recreation Commission and the Ingham County Environmental Advisory Commission, where her focus is to uplift and advocate for the restoration of pollinator habitat. She is committed to taking action in defense of wildlife, as all those lives are necessary to the practice of Anishinaabe cultural instructions. Gidinawendimin: We are all Related.

David Inouye is an ecologist and conservation biologist, retired from teaching at the University of Maryland, but still active in his long-term research at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory (at 9,500′ in Colorado). 2022 is his 52nd year working there, mostly on wildflowers and pollinators, and the effects of climate change on their phenology and interactions (research supported by the National Science Foundation). David works with hummingbirds, now by helping as the bander for two research groups looking at their vision, flower-visiting behavior, beak morphology, and genetics; last summer he banded about 300, of 4 different species. David also has some long-term (since 1973) projects on plant demography, following individually tagged plants in an annual census. He has also done a lot of work with bumblebees. David serves on the Boards of the North American Pollinator Protection Campaign and a local NGO (Citizens for a Healthy Community) that is focused on keeping oil and gas drilling out of our watershed (valley of the North Fork of the Gunnison River), which has the largest concentration of organic farms, vineyards, and orchards in the state. He serves as a reviewer, a few times a year, for National Science Foundation panels, reviews a lot of articles for scientific journals, is a member of the Colorado Oil & Gas Conservation Commission’s working group on biological resources, a member of the Colorado 7th Judicial District Nominating Commission, and is part of a working group funded by the USDA to establish a new national monitoring program for native bees. David enjoys photography, white-water rafting (rowing a raft through the Grand Canyon for 21 days in March 2022), backpacking, bicycling, and growing and harvesting most of the food that we eat.

Dr. Nichole Keway Biber is a tribal citizen of the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians (Waganakising Odawa). Nichole serves on the Board of the Anishinaabek Caucus, where she helps to advance issues of importance to Indigenous communities, including her work as the lead of the Wolf and Wildlife Preservation Team. A longtime grassroots activist who focuses on environmental justice as the foundational site of healing, she is also a Water Protector, jingle dress dancer, and organic home gardener. Nichole is also appointed to the East Lansing Parks and Recreation Commission and the Ingham County Environmental Advisory Commission, where her focus is to uplift and advocate for the restoration of pollinator habitat. She is committed to taking action in defense of wildlife, as all those lives are necessary to the practice of Anishinaabe cultural instructions. Gidinawendimin: We are all Related.

Lisa Jaguzny is Senior Program Director at the Biodiversity Funders Group and oversees the Land and Freshwater and Marine Conservation Programs. After a long career in leadership roles in various sectors of the conservation community, she brings her deep knowledge of conservation together with her love of convening to activate funders to accelerate policy change. Before coming to BFG, she recently led Oxbow Farm & Conservation Center, where she transformed the 240 acre farm into a force for promoting climate resilient practices through regenerative agriculture and environmental stewardship. Prior to Oxbow, Lisa led the Campion Foundation where she served as CEO for nearly 10 years and created the Campion Advocacy Fund, a 501(c)(4) nonprofit focused on protecting US public lands and fostering indigenous-led campaigns to protect Alaska’s lands and waters. Lisa served as Deputy Director for People For Puget Sound for 11 years, during which time she led the campaign that resulted in the protection of more than 1,000 miles of Puget Sound shorelines. Lisa has served as a Board Member for the Western Conservation Foundation and the Biodiversity Funders Group. She holds a BA from Trinity College, and an Executive MBA Certificate from Stanford University’s Center for Social Innovation.

Dr. Nichole Keway Biber is a tribal citizen of the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians (Waganakising Odawa). Nichole serves on the Board of the Anishinaabek Caucus, where she helps to advance issues of importance to Indigenous communities, including her work as the lead of the Wolf and Wildlife Preservation Team. A longtime grassroots activist who focuses on environmental justice as the foundational site of healing, she is also a Water Protector, jingle dress dancer, and organic home gardener. Nichole is also appointed to the East Lansing Parks and Recreation Commission and the Ingham County Environmental Advisory Commission, where her focus is to uplift and advocate for the restoration of pollinator habitat. She is committed to taking action in defense of wildlife, as all those lives are necessary to the practice of Anishinaabe cultural instructions. Gidinawendimin: We are all Related.

Stephanie Kurose is Senior Endangered Species Policy Specialist at the Center for Biological Diversity where she develops policy and advocacy strategies to protect our nation’s most imperiled animals and plants and the wild places they live. As part of this work, she engages with Congress and the administration to secure stronger protections for endangered species and their habitats, assists in litigation to secure protections for threatened and endangered species under the Endangered Species Act, and educates the public on threats to wildlife and biodiversity. She earned her J.D. from American University Washington College of Law, and a Masters in Global Environmental Policy from American University School of International Service. Her favorite critters are the monarch butterfly and the pangolin, and her favorite flowers are dahlias. In her spare time, she loves to read, garden, and work on her family’s farm in Connecticut where they raise chickens and honeybees.

In her 35 years with the Smithsonian and related institutions, Ruth has created powerful programs that changed the way people think about conservation, science, and environment. She has forged connections through hosting hundreds of live and web-based conversations to harness the power of science in our culture. She led the elite team that produced and built audiences for Earth Optimism Summits from 2017-22. Earth Optimism reached more than 400m people worldwide on the 50th Anniversary of Earth Day in 2020. Earth Optimism will be a theme of the Smithsonian Folklife Festival
on Washington, DC’s National Mall June 22 – July 4, 2022.

Stolk is presently a Smithsonian Research Associate, writing about US Conservation in the early 1900s. She was recently awarded a Bell Research Grant by the Forest History Society at Duke University. She holds a BA and Master’s degree in English Literature at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Ruth’s interdisciplinary team created the Smithsonian’s “Working Land and Seascapes” and “Movement of Life” Action Areas – which incentivize project co-design among scientists and communities. In the past 15 years, Ruth has created and led dozens of incubators across health/environment, Science for Global Goals, species and ecosystem conservation, and intergenerational engagement, which have led to important integrative research programs from Alaska to Kenya, engaging multiple partner organizations in meaningful collaborations.

Virginia Working Landscapes (VWL), which Ruth co-founded in 2010 with the scientific team at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, flourishes as a Smithsonian model for successful science/community engagement toward improving rural landscape management. VWL has catalyzed broader regional programs like “Chesapeake Working Landscapes,” based at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center on the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland.

In the 1990s, Ruth Anna pioneered some of the first distance learning platforms for Smithsonian’s National Zoo NOAHS Center, along with award-winning educational series with PBS “The New Explorers” and educational broadcast networks. She successfully pitched and created “Saving Stuff,” a best-selling book published by Simon and Schuster. She has overseen volume-editing for key book series for Brill Publishers in The Netherlands since 1987.

Lori Udall has over 25 years of experience in international and domestic environmental policy, indigenous rights, and governance and public accountability of international development institutions. In 1967, her father, Stewart Udall—as Secretary of Interior—issued the first endangered species list under the Endangered Species Preservation Act. His list included such great American icons as the timber wolf, red wolf, bald eagle, grizzly bear, American alligator, and the peregrine falcon. Lori continues the family legacy work on endangered species. She is currently President of Montpelier Consulting, LLC, and Program Director for Sacharuna Foundation which focuses on land conservation, endangered species, sustainable agriculture, and indigenous rights and livelihoods. Sacharuna has supported campaigns around the gray wolf, African elephant, and the Hawaiian monk seal. Lori previously worked with First Nations Development Institute, International Rivers Network, and the Environmental Defense Fund. Udall has an M.C.L. from George Washington University, an L.L.M. from Downing College, Cambridge, England, and a B.A. from George Mason University.

Story Warren is a recent graduate of the University of Montana, earning a B.S. in Wildlife Biology. She grew up in Washington State with a love of the outdoors. Upon seeing her first wild wolves in Yellowstone at age six, her love of wolves and wildlife was sparked. She began testifying before state and federal wildlife commissions as a young teen, advocating for consideration of the perspectives of young people and future generations in wildlife conservation policy decisions. In 2012, following the death of famous Yellowstone wolves “06” and 754M, she began the social media campaign “Kids4Wolves” to educate young people about wolf conservation, behavior, and ecology, as well as to get students and young people involved in the political process governing wolf and wildlife conservation. For this endeavor, Story earned the President’s Environmental Youth Award from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as well as the Gloria Barron Prize for Young Heroes.

Story has studied and monitored a Washington wolf pack since 2014 using tracking and trail cameras, following the lives of the family and individual wolves for over seven years. During her college years, she spent three summers doing field work for the wolf programs of state fish and wildlife agencies. She spent the summer of 2021 as a Demmer Scholar in Washington, D.C., learning about the intersection of natural resources and federal policy, and working as an intern for the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership’s government relations team. Story is passionate about conserving biodiversity, ethical wildlife conservation, and getting young people involved in the wildlife policymaking process.

Advisory Board

Based in Bozeman, Montana, Renee Callahan has over 30 years of professional experience in federal, state, and administrative law, policy, and research. As Executive Director for ARC (Animal Road Crossing) Solutions, Renee leads an interdisciplinary non-profit think tank working to ensure wildlife crossings are built whenever they are needed while spearheading ARC’s efforts to inspire innovative, nature-based policies and climate-smart wildlife infrastructure solutions.

Stephan Chenault is Director of Foundation Relations at The New York Botanical Garden and has substantial experience in not-for-profit management and environmental advocacy. His early experience as an environmental activist included volunteer work with the Sierra Club, where he served as a member of the Executive Committee of the New York City Group, Conservation Chair, Environmental Justice Committee Co-Chair, and Volunteer Coordinator; and initiated or served on several committees, including the Endangered Species Committee, Forest Committee, and Wildlife and Wilderness Committee. He also served as Vice President of the Board and Chair of the Development Committee for Magnolia Tree Earth Center, a conservation, cultural, community, and environmental justice center in the Bedford Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, NY, where he wrote and was awarded grants from private foundations for the “Magnolia Tree Earth Center Community Revitalization Project.” He has also worked on international hunger and poverty issues through RESULTS, and on homelessness issues with the Coalition for the Homeless and other homeless service and advocacy organizations. He currently volunteers with 350nyc on climate change issues. Stephan has a Bachelor of Arts from Amherst College, Master of Science Degree in Education from Long Island University, and certificates in field botany from The New York Botanical Garden and in conservation biology from Columbia University Earth Institute.

Mckenzie Dice is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder. She completed her bachelor’s degree at the University of Minnesota Morris in Environmental Science and German. Mckenzie now studies the polar atmospheric boundary layer, which is of critical importance for understanding climate change in the polar regions, and the threat it poses to the species and people who live there. Mckenzie is passionate about animals of all kinds, and wants to help the Endangered Species Coalition to protect animals all over the world that are at risk of being affected by climate change.

Jennifer Ebisemiju Madar is the Principal of Madar Marcom, a Boston-based marketing communications consultancy committed to crafting communications that enable organizations to present themselves more effectively by sharing their mission, vision, values, and stories. She has an undergraduate degree in History from Yale University, and she  is especially passionate about helping socially responsible organizations to develop compelling cases for engagement and support.

Earlier in her career, Madar held management positions at several Boston and New York advertising agencies. She subsequently held director positions at several Boston nonprofits, including Mass Audubon, where she led the revamp of its communications channels, branding, and messaging with an emphasis on a broader environmental focus. She enjoys nothing more than the Great Outdoors and is honored to play a role, however small, in its preservation.

Jean Flemma provides strategic guidance and policy analysis for non-profits and foundations regarding the development and implementation of political, legislative, and administrative strategies related to natural resource conservation. She previously worked for more than two decades for the United States Congress and served on three committees for five committee chairmen or ranking members. Most recently, she was a Senior Policy Advisor for Ranking Member Raul Grijlava on the Committee on Natural Resources. During her time on the Hill, she worked to protect bedrock environmental laws such as the Endangered Species Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, and the Magnuson-Stevens Act. In addition to her congressional work, Jean also served as the Executive Director of Prairie Rivers Network, a statewide non-profit in Illinois focused on protecting clean water and wildlife habitat. She started her career in public policy on Capitol Hill as a Sea Grant Fellow from the University of Washington, where she also earned her master’s degree in Marine Policy. She has an undergraduate degree in economics from Middlebury College.

Rodrigo Garcia serves as the Chief Investment Officer and Chief Financial Officer for the Illinois State Treasury. In this pivotal executive post, Garcia directs the treasury’s combined $25 billion fixed income, equity, and venture capital portfolios, all investment and financial professionals, multiple asset classes and related banking and financial services in order to maximize portfolio returns and bolster the Illinois macro and micro economy.

He holds two post-graduate degrees, one in finance from the University of Illinois and one in public policy from Northwestern University and recently completed a senior executives program at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. Garcia was previously the Director of the Illinois Department of Veterans’ Affairs and a member of the Illinois Cabinet, and has also worked for Morgan Stanley & Co., Inc. and the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.

Garcia serves as the Chairman of Student Veterans of America and the National Hispanic Life Sciences Society and as Board Vice President for Teatro Vista Theatre Company. Garcia has also been named one of the “Top 100 under 50” Executive Leaders by Diversity MBA Magazine and was recognized as a “Rising Star” by the National Society of Hispanic MBA’s.

He is an avid entrepreneur, a successful financier, and an angel investor.

Major General Michael R. Lehnert is retired as the Commanding General of Marine Corps Installations West. As Commanding General, he was responsible for environmental stewardship of seven major Marine installations. Major General Lehnert began his career with the Marines in 1973. During his 36 years of service, Major General Lehnert was stationed in North Carolina, Texas, Oregon, Virginia, California, Panama, Japan, the Philippines, and Cuba and led Marines during Operation Iraqi Freedom. Throughout his career, Major General Lehnert has championed the cause of environmental stewardship in the Marine Corps. He was most recently stationed at California’s Camp Pendleton, home to eighteen threatened or endangered species. Under General Lehnert, Camp Pendleton pursued extensive stewardship of species, including restricting maneuvers during the nesting season of California least tern and Western snowy plover, and clearing miles of invasive species to protect the endangered arroyo toad. Under his command, the Marine Corps accomplished significant successes on other installations, protecting the Sonoran pronghorn antelope in Yuma and the desert tortoise at 29 Palms. During his nearly 5 years in command of the West Coast bases, his installations received numerous awards for protecting the environment and for energy conservation. He is also the National Conflict Resolution Center’s 2010 National Peacemaker Honoree. 

Ariane Lemaire is a Duke University undergraduate student deeply passionate for intersectional environmental justice, ecology research, and international relations and politics. She has completed coursework at Harvard University, conducted research on the embryonic development of Pacific purple sea urchins in response to pollutants in the La Jolla region with the University of California San Diego, and earned an advanced science research certification under the expertise of Mario Capecchi, a Nobel Laureate in Medicine. In recognition of Ariane’s academic achievements as a Mexican-American student, she was selected as a National Hispanic Recognition Program Scholar. Ariane serves as Co-Chief Operating Officer at the Am4All Foundation, a Forbes-featured nonprofit providing volunteer opportunities to youth worldwide through partnerships with renowned humanitarian organizations like Make-A-Wish, Feed the Children, and the Tyler Robinson Foundation. In this position, she oversees over 500 volunteers and leadership team members from around the globe and received the Gold President’s Volunteer Service Award from President Biden for her work with the Foundation. Previously, Ariane volunteered on voter outreach campaigns with Warnock for Georgia, OneMillionOfUs, and the Audubon Society. She has also organized various grassroots projects to assist her community, including associated with her former role as an Activist Training Lab Fellow with the Endangered Species Coalition. In her spare time, she works at a native plant nursery that grows and retails vegetation beneficial to pollinators and wildlife.

Working from Washington, D.C., Bart Melton currently leads the National Park Conservation Association’s (NPCA) Wildlife Program, focusing on the critical issues facing national park wildlife nationwide. He began his career with NPCA in the Southeast Regional Office in 2007 and most recently served as NPCA’s Northern Rockies regional director, where he led NPCA’s work in North Dakota, Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming.

Bart has expertise on many natural resource policy issues, including wildlife, climate change, energy development on public lands, and other conservation challenges facing the national park landscapes. 

Bart has an undergraduate degree in political science from the University of Tennessee and a Master’s of Public Administration with a Graduate Certificate Degree in Not-for-Profit Management from the University of Oregon.

Ruth Musgrave has worked in wildlife and conservation law and policy for over two decades. In 1990, she founded and was director of the Center for Wildlife Law at the Institute of Public Law, University of New Mexico School of Law until the center closed in August 2011. She managed numerous projects concerning wildlife and biodiversity law, including training, youth civics education, facilitation, legal and policy research, drafting legislation, and policy analysis. Ruth was project manager and lead author of the Federal Wildlife and Related Laws Handbook and the State Wildlife Laws Handbook, and was editor of the Wildlife Law News Quarterly and online “Wildlife Law News Weekly Alerts” from 1993 to 2011. She has been a visiting associate professor and an adjunct professor at UNM School of Law, teaching wildlife law, biodiversity and the law, advocacy, and intellectual property law. Ruth is a trustee of the Frances Seebe Charitable Trust, and sits on the board of directors of several wildlife organizations. She is also president of Wildlife Policy Consulting Associates based in Olympia, Washington, and advises agencies and nonprofits on wildlife and environment policy issues. She currently works with the National Caucus of Environmental Legislators as their conservation and climate adaptation coordinator.

Ron leads and coordinates Wildlands Network’s science programs across North America, with an emphasis on habitat connectivity mapping, road ecology, and species conservation. He also directs an extensive
camera-trapping project in the red wolf recovery area in North Carolina and is an enthusiastic public advocate for red wolf conservation and the protection of a range of endangered species, from wolves to timber
rattlesnakes. Ron has testified before Congressional staff in DC and has been extensively quoted in the media, including the Washington Post, The Guardian, USA Today, and the Associated Press.

Ron received his Ph.D. in Environmental Science and Policy in 2009 from the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University, where he studied the response of wildlife to urbanization and vehicle traffic in the Sandhills region of North Carolina. Ron earned a B.S. in Biology from North Carolina State University and an M.S. in Conservation Biology and Sustainable Development from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Between 2013–2015.

Endangered Species Day Advisory Board

David Robinson, Former Endangered Species Day Director, Endangered Species Conservation Site Curator

Jeanne Dodds, Creative Director, Endangered Species Coalition

Sofia Metzler Concepción, Sustainable Ocean Alliance

Jill Fritz, Director, Wildlife Protection, U.S. Humane Society

Lewis E. Gorman III, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (Retired)

Jennifer Hammonds, National Wildlife Federation

Emily Mercurio, Girl Scouts-Nation’s Capital

Mary Jacobs, National Garden Clubs

Kristy Jones, National Wildlife Federation

Diane Dotson, Defenders of Wildlife

Jenette Restivo, Children and Nature Network

Emily B. Roberson, Ph.D., Native Plant Conservation Campaign National Native Plant Society for the United States

Rachel Hager, NOAA

Gina Coral, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service

Scientific Advisory Board

Associate Professor of Biology, University of Mississippi, Ph.D. University of Florida (Areas of expertise: behavioral conservation biology, birds and mammals)

He has worked on the conservation of cracids (curassows, guans and chachalacas) in captivity and in their natural habitats in South America, cooperated with state wildlife managers to understand the impact of rodents on the restoration of bottomland hardwood forests in Louisiana, helped a graduate student translocate nestlings of the endangered Red-Cockaded Woodpecker, studied the effect of inbreeding on climbing and foraging in White-Footed Mice, and the effect of harvesting introduced guava trees on native plants in Hawaiian forests. He is interested in reintroducing endangered species to the wild, understanding the effects of habitat fragmentation on behavior, detecting behavioral characteristics of extinction prone species, investigating the role of disease in conservation, and exploring the role of seed dispersal and predation on forest diversity and restoration.

Director of Bird Conservation for the National Audubon Society, Ph.D. in Zoology from the University of Washington (Areas of expertise: birds)

Greg oversees Audubon’s State of the Birds analyses and other research related to bird conservation. Greg has had a long association with Audubon’s Christmas Bird Count: as a participant since 1965, as a count compiler and database manager from 1984-92, and as a researcher since 1984. From 1992 to 1998, Greg served as Executive Director of the American Birding Association (ABA) where he spearheaded the addition of education and conservation initiatives to the organization’s program agenda. Under his leadership, ABA’s membership grew from 11,500 to 20,000 in five years. Previously, Greg was the Midwest Coordinator for Partners In Flight where he served on the species assessment technical committee, which determined many of the scores that underlie Audubon’s State of the Birds: WatchList methodology today. He also has served as editor of Birder’s World magazine. Greg started his career at Cornell University’s Laboratory of Ornithology as the Director of Bird Population Studies. His key accomplishments included helping to launch Project FeederWatch, an annual survey of birds that visit feeders in winter, and the National Science Experiments, where citizen scientists collected data to answer research questions about breeding habitat requirements of tanagers, birdseed preferences, and pigeon behavior and coloration. Greg is an elective member of the American Ornithologists’ Union (AOU) and past president of the Association of Field Ornithologists. He has field experience in Costa Rica, where he completed the Tropical Ecology course of the Organization for Tropical Studies, organized a symposium and field workshop on monitoring bird populations at the First International Wildlife Management Congress, and organized a joint meeting of the American Birding Association, Association of Field Ornithologists, and Costa Rican Ornithologists’ Association that attracted more than 400 participants. He has been an active field birder since the age of 11, birding in 47 of the 50 states, Canada, Mexico, Belize, Costa Rica, Panama, Peru, Chile, Europe, and South Africa.

Staff Scientist, Natural Resources Defense Council. Ph.D. University of Missouri, St. Louis (Areas of expertise: ecology, evolutionary biology, genetics, conservation biology)

Sylvia began her studies in ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of California, San Diego where she completed both her bachelor and master’s degree. After graduating, Sylvia worked as a research assistant at the Center for Conservation Biology at Stanford University with Dr. Paul Ehrlich. She later completed her doctorate degree at the University of Missouri, St. Louis focusing on the distribution and evolutionary relationships of avian malaria parasites. She continued her research with a postdoctoral fellowship at the Smithsonian Institution’s genetics program in Washington D.C. In 2004, Sylvia became an American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Environmental Fellow working with the Environmental Protection Agency. She has been with the Natural Resources Defense council (NRDC) since 2005 where she started as a science fellow researching the use of genetic data in endangered species listing decisions. She is currently a scientist with their Wildlife Conservation program.

Adrienne L. Hollis is the Senior Climate Justice and Health Scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists. In that role, she leads the development, design, and implementation of methods for accessing and documenting the health impacts of climate change on communities of color and other traditionally disenfranchised groups. Prior to joining UCS, Dr. Hollis served as the director of federal policy at WE ACT for Environmental Justice and taught at the George Washington University Milken School of Public Health and the American University Washington College of Law. She has more than 20 years of extensive experience in the environmental arena, particularly focused on environmental justice, equity and inclusion, and the adverse health effects of environmental exposures and climate change on vulnerable communities, as an associate professor in public health, and as an environmental toxicologist and an environmental attorney. She is a member of numerous organizations and boards, including the EPA’s Clean Air Act Advisory Committee, the National Adaptation Forum’s Steering Committee (co-chair) and its Equity Working Group, the American Public Health Association’s Environment Section and Environmental Justice Subcommittee, the Endangered Species Coalition (general counsel) and the Green Leadership Trust. She earned a BS in biology from Jackson State University, a PhD in biomedical sciences from Meharry Medical College, a JD from Rutgers University School of Law, and completed postdoctoral studies at Harvard University School of Public Health.

Prior to joining UCS, Dr. Hollis served as the director of federal policy at WE ACT for Environmental Justice and taught at the George Washington University Milken School of Public Health and the American University Washington College of Law. She has more than 20 years of extensive experience in the environmental arena, particularly focused on environmental justice, equity and inclusion, and the adverse health effects of environmental exposures and climate change on vulnerable communities, as an associate professor in public health, and as an environmental toxicologist and an environmental attorney. 

She is a member of numerous organizations and boards, including the EPA’s Clean Air Act Advisory Committee, the National Adaptation Forum’s Steering Committee (co-chair) and its Equity Working Group, the American Public Health Association’s Environment Section and Environmental Justice Subcommittee, the Endangered Species Coalition (vice chair and co-general counsel) and the Green Leadership Trust. She earned a BS in biology from Jackson State University, a PhD in biomedical sciences from Meharry Medical College, a JD from Rutgers University School of Law, and completed postdoctoral studies at Harvard University School of Public Health.

Malcolm “Mac” Hunter is the Libra Professor of Conservation Biology in the Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Conservation Biology at the University of Maine. 

He earned his B.S. in Wildlife Science at the University of Maine then went to Oxford University where he received his Ph.D. in Zoology. His research covers a wide range of organisms and ecosystems–birds, amphibians, turtles, vascular plants, mammals, lakes, peatlands, grasslands, and more–but his major focus is on forests.   He has produced six books, mainly on conservation biology and managing forests for biodiversity. His interests are also geographically broad; he has worked in over 30 countries, mainly in Africa, South America, and the Himalayas.  He has been active with many government and private organizations, most notably serving as President of the Society for Conservation Biology.

Professor and Director, CONS program, Department of Biology, 
University of Maryland (Areas of expertise: Ecology And Conservation Biology (Pollination Biology, Plant Demography, Climate Change Biology, Flowering Phenology, Plant-Animal Interactions)

Dr. Inouye has worked with bumblebees, euglossine bees, pollinating flies, tephritid flies, hummingbirds, and wildflowers, on topics including pollination biology, flowering phenology, plant demography, and plant-animal interactions such as ant-plant mutualisms, nectar robbing, and seed predation.  He has worked in Australia, Austria, Central America, and Colorado, where he has spent summer field seasons since 1971 at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory (RMBL).  His long-term studies of flowering phenology and plant demography are being used now to provide insights into the effects of climate change at high altitudes.  Dr. Inouye teaches courses in ecology and conservation biology at the University of Maryland, and has also taught at the University of Colorado’s Mountain Research Station, the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory, and with the Organization for Tropical Studies.  At the University of Maryland he directs the graduate program in Sustainable Development and Conservation Biology. 

Head of the Plant Conservation Unit, Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History (Areas of expertise: conservation biology, plant conservation assessments, ecology, plant-animal interactions)

Dr. Krupnick coordinates activities and research that focus on plant conservation, endangered plant species, and biodiversity hotspots. His primary research examines how data from herbarium specimens can be used in assessing the global conservation status of plant species. He has conducted conservation assessments of the flora of Hawaii and the flora of the West Indies. Along with the American Society of Botanical Artists, he co-curated the traveling exhibition, “Losing Paradise? Endangered Plants Here and Around the World,” resulting in a convergence of art, science, conservation, and education. Dr. Krupnick serves on the steering committees of the North American Pollinator Protection Campaign and the North American Orchid Conservation Center. He is the co-editor of the book Plant Conservation: A Natural History Approach (University of Chicago Press; 2005), and the editor of two newsletters—the Biological Conservation Newsletter and The Plant Press (newsletter of the U.S. National Herbarium).

Dr. Jan Randall is a Board Member of the Endangered Species Coalition, Professor Emeritus of Biology at San Francisco State University and a fellow of the California Academy of Science and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (Areas of expertise: mammals, deserts and education)

Jan grew up on a family cattle ranch in southern Idaho. She has a B.S. in zoology, University of Idaho; M.Ed. University of Washington, Seattle; Ph.D. in zoology, Washington State University; NIH postdoctoral fellow at the University of Texas, Austin; visiting professor, Cornell University. She enjoyed a successful academic career with professorships at Central Missouri State and San Francisco State University. Jan is a fellow of the California Academy of Science, the Animal Behavior Society, and the American Society for the Advancement of Science. She received a career award in recognition of her seminal contribution to the study of animal behavior from the Animal Behavior Society and an Outstanding Alumni Award from the University of Idaho. Jan, who is a Professor Emeritus of Biology at San Francisco State University, is writing a book on endangered species and loves to travel, hike, and garden.

Brian Silliman is the Rachel Carson Associate Professor of Marine Conservation Biology. He holds both B.A. and M.S. degrees from the University of Virginia, and completed his Ph.D. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Brown University.

Dr. Silliman was named a David H. Smith Conservation Fellow with The Nature Conservancy in 2004 and a Visiting Professor with the Royal Netherlands Society of Arts and Sciences in 2011. He has also received several awards, including the Young Investigator Award from the American Society of Naturalists (2006), a Young Investigator Grant Award from the Andrew Mellon Foundation (2007), and a NSF Career Grant Award (2011). Dr. Silliman has published 13 book chapters and over 90 peer reviewed journal articles, and co-edited two books Human Impacts on Salt Marshes: A Global Perspective (with T. Grosholtz and M. D. Bertness) and Marine Community Ecology (with M. Bertness, J. Bruno and J. Stachowicz). His teaching and research are focused on community ecology, conservation and restoration, global change, plant–animal interactions, and evolution and ecological consequences of cooperative behavior.