2018 SFBBO Staff
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Yiwei Wang, Ph.D., is Executive Director at SFBBO and manages the science and fundraising programs. Yiwei grew up in the South Bay and has called the Bay area her home for most of her life. She attended Cornell University and double majored in Biology and Psychology. Returning to the west coast, she worked for a variety of organizations that focused on birds and mammals, including an internship with the Golden Gate Raptor Observatory and a season as a field technician in SFBBO's Snowy Plover Program. She then attended UC Santa Cruz and received her PhD in Environmental Studies. Her dissertation focused on learning how human development impacts mountain lions and their relationships with other smaller carnivores. After completing her Ph.D., she worked in northern Kenya to coordinate research efforts among four NGOs to study regional human development and wildlife movement as part of a project supported by the Nature Conservancy. Most recently she was a post-doctoral scholar in Santa Barbara, where she worked to increase and facilitate the management and sharing of ecological data.
Contact:ywang@sfbbo.org
Contact:ywang@sfbbo.org
Kristin Butler, M.S., is the Outreach and Communications Director at SFBBO, overseeing communications and environmental education. She has a B.A. in Political Science from Whitman College and an M.S. in Mass Communications from San Jose State University with a concentration in print journalism. Her master's thesis focused on the application and use of the Internet as a communications tool. After college and during graduate school, Kristin interned as a writer for California State Assemblywoman Delaine Eastin's office and taught at the California School for the Blind and Sylvan Learning Center. Since then, Kristin has managed and directed fundraising and communications programs for several conservation and youth serving organizations, including the East Bay Regional Park District, Girls Inc., and Earthjustice. She was also a reporter for her hometown daily newspaper, The Argus. She covered every beat, including the environment, and wrote about endangered species, habitat loss, wetlands regulation, and other Bay Area issues. In addition, her work has appeared in Bay Area BusinessWoman News, Tideline, All Bird Bulletin, and Birdwatching Magazine, and on national blogs including SciStarter, P.L.O.S. CitizenSci, and Discover's Citizen Science Salon.
Contact: kbutler@sfbbo.org
Contact: kbutler@sfbbo.org
Alvaro Jaramillo, M.S., is a senior biologist working with both the Science and Outreach Programs. Alvaro has a B.S. in Zoology and an M.S. in Ecology and Evolution from the University of Toronto, and also conducted research at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, British Columbia. An expert on the birds of California and North America, he wrote the American Birding Association Field Guide to Birds of California and New World Blackbirds. He is also an authority on the birds of Chile, authoring Birds of Chile (2003), collaborating on Chile’s Important Bird Areas program, and helping to identify a new bird species there, Oceanites pincoyae (Pincoya Storm-Petrel). An author and contributor to numerous field guides and popular publications, Alvaro’s passion is not only to understand the biology and natural history of birds, but to enrich other’s enjoyment of birds and further avian conservation and he leads birding trips throughout the world with his company, Alvaro's Adventures. He is also a recipient of the Eisenmann Medal of the Linnean Society of New York, which honors people who excel in ornithology and encourage the amateur.
Contact: ajaramillo@sfbbo.org
Contact: ajaramillo@sfbbo.org
Marianne Bristol is SFBBO's Accountant. She earned her B.S. in Business Administration with a concentration in Accounting from Notre Dame de Namur University. For many years, Marianne enjoyed working in the high tech sector for start up companies using her general accounting skills and for mid-size corporations where she partnered with Division Directors to improve business planning and efficiencies. After taking time off from the corporate world to spend more time with her children, Marianne became passionate about volunteerism. She has spent the last decade empowering girls through the Girl Scout program teaching leadership through exploring nature. Marianne also volunteered as a school board member, classroom assistant, and event director. She currently serves as Program Director for a local non-profit helping under served teens engage in high school and transition successfully to college. In 2015, Marianne decided to combine her passion for the non profit sector with her accounting skills to work at SFBBO.
Contact: mbristol@sfbbo.org
Contact: mbristol@sfbbo.org
Josh Scullen oversees all of our landbird program activities, database management, and research permits. Josh has a B.S. in Wildlife Management from West Virginia University and is a North American Banding Council Certified Trainer. Originally from Maryland, Josh has spent several years conducting field work throughout North and Central America and Hawaii, and has lived on the California coast since 2006.
Contact: jscullen@sfbbo.org
Contact: jscullen@sfbbo.org
David Thomson, M.S., is SFBBO's Habitats Program Director. David has a B.S. in Biology from Seattle University in Washington and an M.S. in Wetland Ecology from Southeastern Louisiana University, where he performed research on coastal wetlands. Since moving to California in 2001 he has actively researched the ecology and restoration of wetlands in San Francisco Bay, including an ongoing study to develop methods and materials for restoring tidal marsh-upland transitional habitats. The methods he has developed are being utilized to restore habitats at sites throughout the estuary as a part of the tidal marsh ecosystem's restoration. David also contributes to several regional initiatives, such as the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service Tidal Marsh Recovery Implementation Team, and co-leads the Upland Transitional Habitat Decision Support System.
Contact: dthomson@sfbbo.org
Contact: dthomson@sfbbo.org
Ben Pearl, M.S., is the Plover Program Director for SFBBO. Ben grew up in San Luis Obispo, where he attained an early love for nature exploring the nearby tide pools and oak forests. He completed his B.S. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at U.C. Santa Cruz, and first came to SFBBO while beginning his Masters at San Jose State University. For his Master’s thesis, he examined how various factors affect plover foraging habitat selection during the winter in the South San Francisco Bay. His favorite part of field work is banding Snowy Plover chicks and watching them grow up! He also greatly enjoys the outreach he does as SFBBO’s ambassador for Snowy Plovers in the Bay Area.
Contact: bpearl@sfbbo.org
Contact: bpearl@sfbbo.org
Max Tarjan, Ph.D., is the Waterbird Program Director at SFBBO. In this role, she coordinates avian monitoring and citizen science efforts. Max is interested in animal space use and uses spatial statistics and programming to track bird populations and inform management of wildlife in the Bay Area. Max received her B.A. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Princeton University, and then came to the West Coast to pursue her interest in behavioral ecology at the University of California, Santa Cruz. For her Master’s and PhD, she researched space use and reproductive success of male sea otters in Monterey Bay, CA. She enjoys education and outreach, and is an instructor for the Institute for Scientist & Engineer Educators.
Contact: mtarjan@sfbbo.org
Contact: mtarjan@sfbbo.org
Victoria Heyse, is the Waterbird Lead Biologist at SFBBO, where she conducts waterbird surveys on the Bay's managed ponds, monitors gulls and corvids at local landfills, and patrols the South Bay sloughs in support of our Avian Disease Prevention Program. Victoria first fell in love with marsh birds during a field season in college studying Saltmarsh Sparrows and monitoring the nests of Willets and Clapper Rails. After earning a B.S. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Connecticut, Victoria completed a year of AmeriCorps service with Sequoia Riverlands Trust in Visalia, CA, where she coordinated volunteers on restoration projects and led environmental education programs. Victoria started as a Waterbird Intern at SFBBO in 2014 before transitioning to biologist in 2015.
Contact: vheyse@sfbbo.org
Contact: vheyse@sfbbo.org
Dan Wenny, Ph.D., leads our Burrowing Owl research in the South Bay area, studies birds and landscaping features in urban environments, and works at our Coyote Creek bird banding station. Dan completed a B.A. in Biology at Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana, where he participated in research in Kenya and Costa Rica. For his M.A. at University of Missouri-Columbia he studied the effects of forest fragmentation on forest interior birds, and for his Ph.D. at the University of Florida he studied seed dispersal by birds and subsequent tree seedling survival in the cloud forests of Monteverde, Costa Rica. Following that, Dan studied grassland birds and prairie restoration in northwestern Illinois and taught various biology courses at Loras College in Dubuque, Iowa. After moving to California in 2014, he started researching bird use of high elevation meadows in the central Sierra Nevada. He is also interested in urban ecology, plant-animal interactions, and ecosystem services and recently co-edited a book including these topics, Why Birds Matter: Avian Ecological Functions and Ecosystem Services.
Contact: dwenny@sfbbo.org
Contact: dwenny@sfbbo.org
Miranda Melen, M.S., is the senior seasonal ecologist for the Habitats Program at SFBBO where she is restoring and managing rare and valuable habitats that are home to sensitive and endangered species of plants and vertebrates of the San Francisco Bay Area. She is also a lecturer at San Jose State University in the Environmental Studies Department where she teaches courses in ecological restoration. Miranda has an M.S. in Environmental Studies and a B.S. in Environmental Science. Her masters research focused on understanding the reproductive success of Eryismum teretifolium (Ben Lomond wallflower), an endangered biennial endemic to the Zayante Sandhills in the Santa Cruz Mountains, CA. Her thesis assessed the genetic makeup of four distinct E. teretifolium populations, the importance of insect pollinators for reproductive success, and the geographic barriers to reproductive success. Miranda also has a background in endangered plants, urban runoff, recycling, and environmental education. She has traveled to Costa Rica for primate research and rainforest restoration, and kayaked around two desert islands off the coast of Baja California, Mexico. Miranda enjoys the outdoors and is passionate about hiking, camping, kayaking, and insects
Contact: mmelen@sfbbo.org
Contact: mmelen@sfbbo.org
Alex Rinkert is a biologist at SFBBO who conducts landbird, waterbird, plover, and tern surveys for various SFBBO projects and assists with habitat restoration in the tidal marshes of the San Francisco Bay. Alex has been studying birds in central coastal California for nearly ten years. While studying Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at U.C. Santa Cruz, he developed an interest in natural history, and now pursues dragonflies and small mammals as avidly as he does birds. He regularly leads land and seabirding trips around the region and directs the Santa Cruz County Breeding Bird Atlas II.
Contact: arinkert@sfbbo.org
Contact: arinkert@sfbbo.org
Cole Jower is a habitats ecologist at SFBBO who has also worked in SFBBO's waterbird and plover programs. A Bay Area native, his love of nature began early when he used to explore the East Bay hills for lizards and snakes. Cole graduated from Humboldt State University in 2014 with a B.S. in Wildlife Conservation and has had the opportunity to study cloud forest birds in Ecuador, and nesting sea turtles in Costa Rica. In 2017 he began pursuing an M.S. degree in Biology at San Jose State University where he will examine patterns of habitat use by Rhinoceros Auklets at the Farallones
Contact: cjower@sfbbo.org
Contact: cjower@sfbbo.org
Anqi Chen is a plover biologist with SFBBO. Anqi received a B.S. degree in Environmental Science and Terrestrial Resource Management at the University of Washington. During her coursework, she was involved in a project to study the foraging behavior of Great Blue Herons and also completed a senior thesis on window-strike mortality of birds on her campus. Before working in the Plover Program, Anqi did an internship in SFBBO's Waterbird Program conducting waterbird and water quality surveys on South Bay Salt Ponds; assisting with our Avian Disease Prevention and Colonial Waterbird programs; and helping with the outreach program. She is also an artist and has designed several of SFBBO's California Fall Challenge t-shirts.
Contact: achen@sfbbo.org
Contact: achen@sfbbo.org
Eric Lynch is a habitats seasonal ecologist at SFBBO. Eric earned his B.S. in English and American Literature from Harvard, then applied that knowledge professionally, rising in just a few years to lead Community Development for Disney Interactive. But his regular backpacking trips led to a change in course, and Eric decided to give up that career and return to school at West Valley College to study nature. Since then he has worked with State, County, and East Bay Parks, as well as the San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge Complex to gain experience in the field. Most recently he interned at Alameda Island National Wildlife Refuge, where he took care of the Least Tern colony with Susan Euing. Eric has also been volunteering with the Golden Gate Raptor Observatory's banding program in the Marin Headlands since 2014, and in the coming year he expects to start a master's degree focused on raptor migration patterns.
Contact: elynch@sfbbo.org
Contact: elynch@sfbbo.org
Emily Cech is a habitats seasonal ecologist at SFBBO and specializes in the surveillance and maintenance of SFBBO's restoration sites. In 2017, Emily earned a B.S. degree in Environmental Studies from San Jose State University. For her senior project, she monitored the effect of salinization on plant species at Inner Bair Island in Redwood City, CA. She has gained experience in the environmental field working as a habitat restoration intern for Grassroots Ecology, a manager for the Center for the Development of Recycling (CDR), and a biological monitor for Olberding Environmental Inc.
Contact: ecech@sfbbo.org
Contact: ecech@sfbbo.org
Matt Hinshaw is a habitats seasonal ecologist at SFBBO. Matt grew up in Del Norte County near the Oregon border where his love for the outdoors grew through swimming in the Smith River and hiking through the redwoods. He graduated from San Jose State University in 2016 with a B.A. in Environmental Studies and a concentration in Restoration and Resource Management. Throughout his college career he strove to become closer to nature by offering environmental education experiences to kids at outdoor summer camps, as well as volunteering at community gardens and managing the SJSU Campus Community Garden.
Contact: mhinshaw@sfbbo.org
Contact: mhinshaw@sfbbo.org
Tonya Anderson, M. S., is an education specialist with SFBBO working on the development and implementation of a place-based education module introducing middle schoolers to bird banding and bird migration patterns. She graduated from the University of Wyoming with a B.S.in Zoology and Physiology and then an M.S. in Zoology, where she studied life history trait changes in zooplankton in Yellowstone Lake, WY, after the invasion of lake trout. Since moving to the Bay Area, she has volunteered for SFBBO’s Education Outreach, Avian Disease, Colonial Waterbird, and bird banding programs, and for the World Parrot Trust in Bolivia working to conserve critically endangered Blue-throated Macaws.
Contact: landbird_intern_1@sfbbo.org
Contact: landbird_intern_1@sfbbo.org
Anjou Kato is a waterbird intern with SFBBO. She recently completed her B.A. in Integrative Biology at U.C. Berkeley and conducted point count research on American Coots with Berkeley Aquatic Park. She's also worked for the nonprofit Girls on the Run as a coach for 4th and 5th grade girls at San Pedro Elementary School. At SFBBO she surveys South Bay Salt Ponds for waterbirds, helps recover sick birds from our sloughs as part of the Avian Disease Prevention Program, and helps educate the community about avian science and bird conservation.
Contact: waterbird_intern_3@sfbbo.org
Contact: waterbird_intern_3@sfbbo.org
Kyle Wong is a science outreach intern at SFBBO. He currently attends San Jose State University where he is in the Environmental Studies Department with a concentration in restoration. He first learned about SFBBO when he helped provide a mini report about SFBBO's Bair Island tidal marsh restoration site. In addition to being a student at SJSU, Kyle has volunteered with the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy, the Presidio Trust, the City of Mountain View, and San Jose Park Services where he removed invasive plant species. He also currently works as a gallery facilitator at the Tech Museum of Innovation teaching visitors of all ages about all kinds of science. As an intern at SFBBO Kyle leads the family and youth science programs and helps organize SFBBO participation at various community outreach events.
Contact: outreach_intern@sfbbo.org
Contact: outreach_intern@sfbbo.org
Graham Pimm is a waterbird intern at SFBBO. Graham grew up in Northern California and received his B.A. degree in Biology at Occidental College. While there, he assisted a post-doctoral researcher in the Moore Lab of Zoology to better understand the evolutionary dynamics associated with molt migration. Currently, he is volunteering with the Mount Diablo Audubon Society and is broadly interested in avian ecology, evolution, and conservation. He is taking the lead on managing citizen scientists in SFBBO's Colonial Waterbird Program as well as helping with data entry and analysis for that program.
Contact: waterbird_intern_2@sfbbo.org
Contact: waterbird_intern_2@sfbbo.org