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.

Dr. John Gallo is a geographer, land-use planner and landscape ecologist supporting decision-makers, scientists, and stakeholders. He also develops, evaluates, and shares innovative methods for addressing challenges to conservation science and practice. Dr. Gallo blends interdisciplinary areas of expertise, including:

For more information please see Dr. Gallo’s curriculum vitae linked to the right.

Gladwin Joseph was born in a town called Nazareth in Tamil Nadu, India, but has lived in Ghana, India and the USA. He was, until recently, the Director and Professor at the School of Development, Azim Premji University (APU), Bangalore, India. Prior to that, he was a senior leader of Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE), an Environmental think-tank and academic institution. He was its director for 10 years and with its founding president helped build and establish ATREE as a premier conservation and sustainability organization in India. His publications span a diverse range of topics from plant ecophysiology to conservation and livelihoods. After finishing a degree in Agriculture in India from the University of Agricultural Sciences, he completed his MS and Ph.D. at Oregon State University. He helped initiate the development of an online course on sustainability for the global south for undergraduate students at APU. He continues to advise and provide inputs on course design as a visiting faculty. In his spare time he is actively involved with the open source Indian Biodiversity portal, particularly the treesindia group which is working on a citizen science project documenting all of India’s tree species. He is also working on an easy-to-use bilingual (English-Spanish) pictorial guide to trees of Oregon. He continues to serve on Ph.D. student advisory committees as an adjunct senior fellow at ATREE. His hobbies include gardening and cooking with his kids, keeping track of global news, reading books on history, culture and religion, hiking, and fly fishing.

Ken Ferschweiler 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 happiest when using computers to help scientists solve scientific problems.

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 applications in networked realtime environments. He is interested in developing, expanding, and linking ecological models to further the understanding of current ecosystems and to examine alternative futures in the face of climate change and human activity. In 2012, he completed an M.S. in Biology at the University of Oregon – Eugene, his research concentrated on modeling fire and its effects in the Willamette Valley.

Tim and his wife Kim share their Eugene, Oregon home with several furred and/or feathered companions of various sizes. In his spare time he occasionally paddles a sea kayak or works on building one.

Jessie is a biologist/botanist with 22 years’ professional experience in field biology, botany and land management throughout California with a strong background in coastal and desert ecology, botany, and natural resource management and restoration.  She is particularly knowledgeable of the central and southern California coast and coastal ranges, western and central Mojave Desert, and central and southern Sierra Nevada Mountains where she has surveyed for and located more than 120 threatened, endangered, or sensitive plant species.  Additional experience includes coastal California gnatcatcher surveys, least Bell’s vireo nest monitoring, sensitive plant and animal monitoring and management, threats assessments and trend analyses, botanical research, vegetation mapping, wetland and upland habitat restoration, and preserve management. Jessie prepares habitat management plans, work plans and budgets, and annual reports, and has created public outreach literature and organized and led outreach events and volunteer workdays. Jessie communicates regularly with the conservation community through workshops and presentations, and is a member of the San Diego rare plant oversight committee and the San Diego County Weed Management Area steering committee.

Brendan Ward joined the Conservation Biology Institute in December 2007 and is now a CBI associate.  He has brought experience in 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 and data fusion, to enable a greater degree of synthesis and cross-pollination across disciplines to fully catapult ecology into the information age.