Bo began his career in conservation geography as an undergraduate environmental studies and geography major at Middlebury College in VT, where he focused on geospatial analysis applications to conservation. His first job after college was at USGS in Anchorage, Alaska, where he digitized geologic maps, became deeply familiar with GIS software and technologies, and designed and taught the first graduate and undergraduate GIS curricula at Alaska Pacific University. He also started Ripple Technologies and published a geography textbook atlas for high schools in Alaska.
Recognizing the importance of applying such powerful tools to conservation and land management strategies, Bo completed a master’s degree in Forest Ecology at Montana State University in Bozeman, MT, where he compared landscape patterns of human disturbance in the Targhee National Forest with the natural disturbance patterns of the 1988 Yellowstone fires.
Bo began working for The Wilderness Society’s Center for Landscape Analysis in 2000, where he designed geospatial analyses to understand ecosystems, identify threats and management challenges, and design conservation solutions for federal land management.
After 11 years at The Wilderness Society, Bo went on to serve as Natural Resources Program Manager at Critigen, now Locana, where he oversees delivery of geospatial solutions under national geospatial services contracts for the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management.
In this capacity, he works directly with federal land management agencies to build national, scalable geospatial solutions to inform land management decisions with timely relevant authoritative data. He fosters inclusive collaboration, from proposal development through project closeout. Throughout his career working with the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management, he has advocated for a more cohesive, scalable, and public geospatial strategy to inform land management decisions.
Jeff A. Tracey, PhD, is a computational scientist and ecologist with extensive experience in artificial intelligence, scientific computing, and wildlife research. Jeff has a PhD in Ecology form Colorado State University, a MS in Biometry from the University of Wisconsin – Madison, and a MS in Biology from University of California, San Diego. With over fourteen years of experience in the U.S. Geological Survey as an ecologist, biostatistician, and computational scientist, Jeff has expertise and experience in designing and implementing research projects involving biotelemetry, bioacoustics, and wildlife camera traps, analyzing data from diverse sources, building predictive models using deep learning techniques, and spatial modeling. Dr. Tracey has published numerous peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters, and reports. His past research has focused using agent-based and spatial modeling to study the effects of landscape fragmentation and urbanization on wildlife movement behavior, functional landscape connectivity, habitat selection, and wildlife disease dynamics. He has conducted field work including radiotelemetry of red diamond rattlesnakes, wildlife camera trapping, and GPS telemetry of Golden Eagles. He has also taught courses on ecological modeling, statistics, artificial intelligence, deep learning, and high-performance computing with R. Currently, his primary research interest is the application of deep learning to conservation and ecological research.
Samapriya Roy, PhD is the Creator and Founder of the Awesome Google Earth Engine Community Catalog and serves as the CEO of Spatial Bytes LLC specializing in geospatial data, workflows and analysis. Additionally, Samapriya is an Advisor to the NSF NEON Science Technology Advisory Committee, an affiliate faculty member at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, and a Designated Campus Colleague at the University of Arizona.
Committed to science communication, Samapriya acts as a thought leader and educator in geospatial applications. A firm believer in fostering community and commons-based data, tools, and platforms, Samapriya promotes collaboration for mutual benefit. Their research emphasizes big data analysis and geospatial technology applications, with a focus on advancing open data access. As a passionate community advocate and dynamic speaker, Samapriya thrives on driving impactful ideas forward and building with and for the community commons.
Dr. Jones has been a trusted partner to Tribes & Indigenous Peoples for 25 years. He is recognized as a national expert in the Tribal Climate Resilience community & has published numerous related peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters, datasets, & news media. Chas’s career has spanned a breadth of disciplines and technical experiences, from leading large field biological and physiographic field surveys in extreme environments, to intense nationwide geospatial analyses using Python, to modeling habitat suitability, changes in hydrology and climate impacts, and the socioeconomic impacts of climate. He has also served as the elected Mayor of Philomath, Oregon. With a broad interdisciplinary background in climate, hydrology, engineering, geospatial sciences, politics, partnership building, & strategic executive leadership, Dr. Jones is honored to serve as an Associate Scientist at CBI.
Beverly (Bev) Law is Professor Emeritus of Global Change Biology & Terrestrial Systems Science in the Department of Forest Ecosystems and Society at Oregon State University. She is a fellow of the American Geophysical Union and the Earth Leadership Program. She has published more than 240 refereed journal articles and book chapters and is a Clarivate Analytics Highly Cited Researcher, in the top 1% in the world across fields (H index > 100). Her 30 years of research includes the effects of climate, wildfire and management on forest carbon processes, and related emissions to the atmosphere at multiple scales from ecosystems to regional and global, and forest carbon accounting. She has testified in multiple US congressional hearings on topics including climate change, wildfires, and forest management. You can find her publications here, such as “Creating Strategic Reserves to Protect Forest Carbon and Reduce Biodiversity Losses in the United States”: http://terraweb.forestry.oregonstate.edu/beverly-law.
I’m a highly motivated climate change ecologist, conservation biologist, sustainability strategist, leadership and science professor, and environmental planner. I’m Chief Scientific and Policy Officer for the Conservation Biology Institute, Affiliate Professor at University of Washington’s Center for Environmental Politics and Inter-disciplinary Arts and Sciences, and Honorary Research Associate of two institutes at the University of Cape Town.
I have had a wonderful career so far, with 34 years working mostly in southern Africa, spanning academia, government, international organizations and initiatives, and national research institutes. Passionate about biodiversity and climate change globally, especially in Africa and the Americas, I operate almost equally comfortably at two levels, planetary and local, with science and society as the ‘lenses’ I use to observe.
In South Africa, I held posts at the South African National Biodiversity Institute of Lead Scientist for Climate Change BioAdaptation and Head of Biodiversity Futures (the latter one of numerous programs I’ve founded and led). From 2013-2016 I was also Honorary President of BirdLife South Africa, and I remain Honorary Research Associate at the University of Cape Town, in both the African Climate and Development Initiative (ACDI) and the Centre of Excellence at the FitzPatrick Institute of African Ornithology.
On science: my main scientific interests are in the spatial and temporal responses of biodiversity and ecosystems to global change. Through 2016, I ran for 9 years a research team jointly between a university research institute and a government funded science-policy institute, to understand the vulnerability and adaptation of endemic species to complex global changes. To understand their responses, I used biogeography, population, community, behavioural and evolutionary ecology lenses, and collaborated with modellers, geneticists, and statistical ecologists.
On society: my main interests are in envisaging societal and environmental futures, in enabling powerful policy and behavioral change, and in bringing about (peaceful) tipping points for a new economy and sustainable society. Science is a key element in the sustainability transition ahead, but only really quite a small one. Far greater elements are economics, human needs and wants, perception, emotion, faith and how ordinary people make decisions in complex situations. To understand these issues in Africa, I used systems analysis, horizon scanning, trends analysis, early warning systems, citizen science, leadership studies, and complex models (in collaboration with modellers!).
My work blends strategic planning, leadership, research, teaching, publication, writing, editing, public speaking, mentorship and citizen science. I teach young scientists and implementers in spatial ecology, biodiversity conservation, land use planning, climate change, environmental policy, conflict resolution, and leadership. I’ve been fortunate to work with some of the best minds on the planet, and hope a few of their ideas and skills rubbed off.
Apart from my day job, I’m a loving parent (to Cat and Julia Barnard Simmons) and wife (to filmmaker John Bowey), a climber of active volcanoes, modest mountaineer, haphazard trail runner, community volunteer, and film co- producer. I love good music, eclectic and diverse people, beauty and diversity in nature, and yummy vegan cuisine.
Affiliate Professor, University of Washington, Bothell, School of Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences – https://www.uwb.edu/ias/faculty-and-staff/phoebe-barnard
Affiliate Professor, University of Washington, Seattle, Center for Environmental Politics – https://depts.washington.edu/envirpol/?page_id=21
Honorary Research Associate, University of Cape Town (UCT) FitzPatrick Institute of African Ornithology – http://www.fitzpatrick.uct.ac.za/fitz/staff/research/barnard
Honorary Research Associate, UCT African Climate and Development Initiative – http://www.acdi.uct.ac.za/acdi/affiliates-people/dr-phoebe-barnard
Alliance of Leading Environmental Researchers & Thinkers page: http://alert-conservation.org/key-people/
Film co-producer, writer, and storyteller, Transmediavision USA – tmvusa.net/ and https://www.phoebebarnard.com/conservation-writing-filmmaking
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/phoebe-barnard/
personal portal – www.phoebebarnard.com
Dan Airola is a Wildlife Biologist with strong experience in corporate management of consulting businesses, natural resource planning, and biological consulting and research. Dan is President of Conservation Research and Planning, a small northern California firm. He recently retired as present of Northwest Hydraulic Consultants Inc., the U.S. subsidiary of NHC Ltd, a $30 MM Canadian firm that specializes in water resource science and engineering. He also served as co-chair of the firm’s Board of Directors.
Previously, Dan ran his own sole-proprietorship biological consulting firm, served as Vice President and Board Chair of Jones & Stokes Associates, a western U.S. Environmental Consulting firm, and worked as a biologist and planner for the Lassen National Forest. Altogether, he has 40 years of experience practicing and managing environmental and engineering consulting firms based in northern California. He also serves as a Director of an environmental consulting firm and hyrology consulting firm in California and several non-profit conservation groups.
Independently Dan conducts long-term research and conservation programs on at-risk bird species and bird-urban habitat relationships. He has conducted long-term studies and published over 60 scientific papers, including works on the population status, ecology, and conservation of the Purple Martin and Tricolored Blackbird, importance of native oaks to migrant and resident birds in urban habitats, Turkey Vulture and Swainson’s Hawk migration, and effects of West Nile Virus on bird populations.
Dr. Dominick A. DellaSala is President and Chief Scientist of the Geos Institute in Ashland, Oregon and President of the Society for Conservation Biology, North America Section. He is an internationally renowned author of over 150 technical papers, including the award winning “Temperate and Boreal Rainforests of the World” (www.islandpress.org/dellasala). Dominick has given plenary and keynote talks ranging from academic conferences to the United Nations (Earth Summit II). He has appeared in National Geographic, Science Digest, Science Magazine, Time Magazine, Audubon Magazine, National Wildlife Magazine, High Country News, Terrain Magazine, NY Times, LA Times, USA Today, Jim Lehrer News Hour, CNN, MSNBC, “Living on Earth (NPR),” and several PBS documentaries. He has testified in congressional hearings in defense of the Endangered Species Act, roadless area conservation, national monument designations, forest protections, and climate change among others. For his efforts to help foster national roadless areas conservation and support designation of new national monuments, he received conservation leadership awards from the World Wildlife Fund in 2000 and 2004, the Wilburforce Foundation in 2006, and was twice nominated for conservation awards for his work as a whistleblower while on the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service spotted owl recovery team. His rainforest book received an academic excellence award in 2012 from Choice magazine, one of the nation’s premier book review journals. Dominick co-founded the Geos Institute in July 2006. He is motivated by leaving a living planet for his daughter and all those that follow.
John Waugh is an adviser on conservation strategies and planning, with a focus on the role of information in conservation policy, and on sustainable finance mechanisms. He has been involved in protected area management for 30 years, as a park ranger, manager, planner, and strategist. He is the author of several publications on invasive species and a contributor to several on protected areas, all with IUCN. After 20 years with IUCN, he is working for Integra LCC based in Washington, DC. His current interests include risk assessment, eco-informatics, climate adaptation strategies, sustainable finance mechanisms, and learning networks for conservation. He lives in the Virginia Piedmont hunt country, where he has not yet succeeded in mediating between foxes and hounds.
William (Bill) Ripple is a University Distinguished Professor of Ecology in the Department of Forest Ecosystems and Society as well as the Director of the “Trophic Cascades Program” at Oregon State University. He has published more than 200 journal articles and was co-lead author of the “World Scientists’ Warning of a Climate Emergency 2021”. He is the director of the Alliance of World Scientists which has 26,000 members from 180 countries.