Executive Team
James Strittholt, Ph.D.
Jim Strittholt is President and Executive Director of the Conservation Biology Institute and has over 10 years experience in applying computer mapping technologies (including GIS and remote sensing) to address various ecological assessments and conservation planning projects in the U.S. and internationally. He holds undergraduate degrees in ...
Pamela Frost, M.S.
Pamela A. Frost earned a B.S. in Environmental Science from the University of Maine, Machias in 1984 and a M.S. in Natural Resource Information Systems from Ohio State University (Columbus, Ohio) in 1994. While at Ohio State, she was involved in a number of Federally funded conservation GIS projects including database construction and ...
Patrick Cox
Patrick joined CBI in October 2010. He brings thirty years of accounting and management experience working for various non-profits. Patrick earned his BBA degree from the University of Michigan in 1980.
Tom Atiyeh
Tom Atiyeh, joined CBI’s team in January 2012 and has a long history of conservation engagement. Tom is a native Oregonian and grew up around Opal Creek where years later he played an instrumental role in converting family mining claims to the now 35,000 acre Opal Creek Wilderness and Scenic Recreation Area. Tom is a former Opal Creek ...
Science & GIS Analysis
Susan Antenen
Susan Antenen is the Conservation Biology Institute’s Sierra Nevada Project Coordinator. Susan is helping CBI coordinate its science activities in the Sierra to deliver timely and integrated information and recommendations to public lands managers. Susan is also the Coordinator for the Southern Sierra Partnership (SSP) comprised of ...
Dominique Bachelet, Ph.D.
Dominique was born and raised in northern France. She received her Master’s degree in 1978 in Lille (France) and her Ph.D. in 1983 at Colorado State University working on biogeochemical cycles in the shortgrass prairie. In 1984, after a brief 3 months in Thailand teaching a simulation modeling class, she went to U.C. Riverside as a postdoc ...
Tosha Comendant, Ph.D.
Tosha joined the Conservation Biology Institute in March of 2008 as a Senior Conservation Scientist. She currently leads a team developing a web-based conservation data and information sharing system, called Data Basin. Tosha has worked on a number of critical conservation issues including evidence-based conservation, climate change, ...
David Conklin, Ph.D.
Dave joined the climate change research group at CBI in 2010, to continue his work of modeling the effects of climate change on natural vegetation. He had turned to that challenge in 2001 following a long career in industry. After 5 years in the trenches as the computer guy in the U.S. Forest Service MAPSS modeling team on the Oregon ...
Gwynne Corrigan, M.S.
Gwynne lives in the San Francisco Bay Area of California and has for the past 16 years. Her life-long interest in ecology and biology brought her to the University of California at Santa Cruz for both her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees. As an undergraduate, Gwynne worked on projects including studies related to the ...
Ken Ferschweiler
Ken has 30 years of experience in computer science, and in 2010 he jumped at the opportunity to join CBI's climate change research group and use that experience in addressing ecological modeling problems. Ken has worked in the US and in Europe in areas ranging from artificial intelligence to massively parallel computing, but has been ...
Patricia Gordon-Reedy, M.A.
Patricia Gordon-Reedy is a Botanist and Vegetation Ecologist with 25 years of experience in environmental studies and conservation planning, having worked in government, consulting, and non-profit sectors. Her areas of expertise include habitat and natural resources management, multiple species conservation plans, endangered (plant) ...
Dennis Grossman, Ph.D.
Dr. Dennis Grossman is a Senior Scientist for the Conservation Biology Institute. He has worked as a senior scientist for non-profit conservation organizations for the past 20 years, and is a recognized expert in conservation planning, biodiversity assessments, and ecological classification. Dr. Grossman earned his Ph.D. in Plant Ecology ...
Kai Henifin, M.A.
Kai Henifin is a Cultural Ecologist/GIS Analyst with professional and academic experience working with diverse communities on a broad range of environmental issues. In 2008, she joined Conservation Biology Institute focusing her attention primarily on protected areas in the United States. Before joining the CBI team, Kai spent three ...
Wendy Peterman, M.S.
Wendy joined CBI as an intern at the beginning of June, 2010 and joined the staff as a Conservation Scientist/GIS Analyst in July, 2010. She studied Environmental Sciences with an emphasis in Applied Ecology and Natural Resource Management at OSU, where she worked as a GIS technician in the Crop and Soil Science Dept. In 2009, she started an MS ...
Heather Rustigian-Romsos, M.A., M.S.
Heather joined CBI in August 2003. She is a landscape ecologist/GIS specialist whose work has focused on predicting effects of land management and landscape change on vertebrates with spatially explicit habitat, population, and connectivity models. She has over 10 years of experience in applied ecological GIS analysis and modeling. Heather ...
Tim Sheehan, M.S.
Tim joined the Conservation Biology Institute in 2008. He has an M.S. in Geology from the University of Missouri - Columbia and an M.S. in Computer Science from the University of Colorado - Boulder. His experience includes porting and tuning climate modeling software on massively parallel supercomputers as well as developing high data flow ...
Wayne Spencer, Ph.D.
Dr. Spencer is a wildlife conservation biologist with over 30 years of professional experience in biological research and conservation planning. He specializes in the practical application of ecological and conservation science to resources management, design of nature reserves, and recovery of endangered species. He has conducted ...
Jerre Ann Stallcup, M.A.
Jerre has been an instrumental part of the Southern California conservation community for over 20 years, with experience in all aspects of endangered species regulations, landscape-scale conservation planning, implementation, monitoring, and management of natural resources in the U.S., Europe, and Mexico. She is effective in developing and ...
Nancy L. Staus, Ph.D.
Nancy has been working at the Conservation Biology Institute since August 1998. She received her M.S. in Conservation Biology at the University of Minnesota in 1997 for research focusing on the threatened West Indian Whistling-duck (Dendrocygna arborea) in the Bahamas. Her current research interests include the use of geographic ...
Alexandra Syphard, Ph.D.
Alexandra Syphard is a research ecologist who investigates landscape change that results from the interplay between human and natural disturbances, especially wildfire, urban development, and climate change. She uses a variety of spatial analytical and modeling methods to investigate how change has occurred in the past, how it is likely to ...
Jessie Vinje
Jessie Vinje is a biologist with 13 years’ professional experience in field biology, botany and land management throughout California with a strong background in coastal and desert ecology, botany, wildlife biology, and desert and coastal natural resource management and restoration. She began her career with the Bureau of Land ...
Brendan Ward, M.S.
Brendan Ward joined the Conservation Biology Institute inDecember 2007. He has brought experiencein GIS, spatial analysis, ecological modeling, and software development to the institute. Brendan has a passion for harnessing computer power to advance conservation science and ecological research. He aspires to contribute to model ...
Software Engineer
Mike Lundin
Mike got his Bachelor of Arts in English from Oregon State University. After becoming a technical writer, he discovered that he enjoyed writing code more than he enjoyed writing documentation. He has spent the last 10 years working with programming languages and databases while designing and maintaining software used internally by credit unions. ...
Tara Starr E. Marvin
Tara joined the Conservation Biology Institute in March of 2010 as a Software Engineer. She brings over 10 years of experience in the software industry with a focus on web applications. Tara has a passion for building intuitive, helpful web applications that run smoothly. She's happily working on the Data Basin system...doing what she can to make ...
Nikolas Stevenson-Molnar
Nik grew up in rural Eastern Washington, and took an early interest in computers and programming. He followed this passion throughout childhood and into college, attending The Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA and studying software design and media. While at Evergreen, Nik found a job working on software to manage and ...
Administrative
Mindy Boyd
Mindy Boyd joined CBI as an Administrative Assistant in 2012. She is new to the conservation community, but has spent the last 12 years providing technical support and managing releases for software used internally by Credit Unions. During her free time she enjoys running, being outdoors and spending time with her family.
Intern
Henri Sanville
Henri is an advocate for being outside as much as humanly possible. Henri is a Pacific North Westerner by birth and heart. Henri’s love of the outdoors inspired the study of horticulture and then geology. Obtaining a B.S. in geology from Oregon State University, followed by a graduate certificate in GIS, Henri inspires to save the ...
Katie O'Connor
Katie O’Connor joined CBI as an intern in 2012 to assist with Data Basin projects. She has an M.S. in Water Resources Policy and Management from OSU, and also works part-time as the West Willamette Restoration Partnership Coordinator in Portland, Oregon. Her focus is on community integration into watershed management. ...
