Libbey White grew up enjoying the natural splendor of Montana, which instilled in her an instinctive interest in conservation. Libbey majored in biology, but was a laundromat attendant, book store clerk, ranch cook, and lab assistant, among other things, before getting close to working with data and code. She got her start in the software field thanks to willing tutors at the Center for Computational Biology at Montana State University. Since then she has held a variety of software development roles, including exhibit software developer at Oregon Museum of Science & Industry and research software developer at Knight Cancer Institute, where she created a genomic data visualization application. She now has over 15 years of software development experience, much of it related to science and data visualization.

Jorge Diaz joined CBI in 2024. He started his career in technology as an artist, animator, and designer working on both the mainstream and the educational video game industry.

After completing an MS in Computer Science he started as a software engineer in the public sector. Sometime in between he taught college classes in storyboarding as well as computer science and co-owned two art supply stores with his wife. His developer experience is in accessibility, automation, full stack development, security, user interface design, and developing systems for a wide variety of user types.

Jorge’s love for nature started while growing up in Puerto Rico where he spent a lot of time fishing, swimming, and playing with his brother and friends in forested and undeveloped lots. He lives in the Northeast where he enjoys mentoring, camping, exercising, drawing, writing, and illustrating comic books and occasionally making music-like sounds with a guitar.

Brianna Fair focuses on project architecture, technical project management, behavioral analytics, and full-stack software engineering, with a particular interest in UX for its direct link to user behavior and interaction. Brianna has worked in tech since the beginning of her career, leading developing and growing a number of digital departments and software teams throughout the West Coast. Much of her work has been focused on integrating a behavioral analytics layer into software to allow for direct feedback to the user experience, in order to better personalize digital interactions. Most recently, she co-founded a decentralized hydroponic farming initiative, based out of Corvallis, Oregon.

As a quantitative ecologist and conservation biologist, Erin Conlisk integrates field experiments with quantitative techniques to understand California plant and wildlife responses to climate change, land-use change, and their interactions with changing wildfire regimes. Her research ranges from applied land management to academic ecology and is typically multidisciplinary, focusing on conservation co-benefits in socio-ecological systems. Currently, Erin is interested in using empirically-driven vegetation and wildfire simulation modeling to understand the influence of climate change, urban development, and forest management on California wildfire risk.

Previously, Erin has used vegetation simulation models to understand the impacts of wildfire, examined satellite data to support waterbird management in the Central Valley of California, modeled landscape connectivity for iconic wildlife in Southern California, created mechanistic models of species’ distributions and abundances, analyzed data from a treeline warming experiment, and worked in the social sciences with an emphasis on educational equity and environmental justice. When Erin is not working you will find her getting outdoors, talking to young people about newfangled things they didn’t have in her day, and combining these two pastimes.

With a background in landscape and quantitative ecology, Justin applies ecological systems thinking coupled with geographic information systems (GIS) technology to help understand the past, present, and future condition of the world around us. Special interest areas include:

By applying data science through storytelling, Justin provides innovative technical expertise to develop practical insight on ecosystems and their components for a multi-stakeholder audience that helps inform decision making for short- or long-term planning and management. He navigates projects with a holistic approach by analyzing local, site-specific attributes in the context of their integration with the surrounding landscape. GIS mapping, modeling, and analysis are frequently leveraged to derive compelling, data-driven narratives that explain how landscapes and people influence one another. His work aims to identify opportunities for improving adaptive capacity to balance the relationship between people, planet, and profit for a more sustainable, resilient future.

Justin holds a Master of Environmental Science and Management (M.E.S.M.) from the Bren School at the University of California, Santa Barbara, a Certificate in Global Sustainability from the University of California, Los Angeles, and a B.A. in Communication from Northwestern University. He resides in San Diego where he enjoys being a frequent patron of the San Diego Zoo & Safari Park and tending to his indoor jungle of houseplants.

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.

Cole Soldo is a conservationist who is grounded in the fact that conservation is, ultimately, about people. He comes from The Ohio State University with experience in risk analysis and decision science, measuring the drivers of conservation program participation rates, and farmer conservation identity. His primary research targeted the use of constructed wetlands to address water quality challenges and farmer willingness to adopt edge-of-field conservation measures in the Western Lake Erie Basin.

Cole brings additional ecosystem stewardship and urban sustainability experience to CBI, emphasizing clear communications and finding workable, focused solutions to pressing environmental issues. He is excited to bring an additional viewpoint and expertise to help CBI’s spatial analysis tools become adopted by a wide audience.

Robin Jones is a member of the Board of Directors for Conservation Biology Institute and served as its executive director from 2023-2025. She brings a strong foundation in biological sciences and a career that bridges environmental impact, technology innovation, and cross-sector leadership. With a BS in Biological Sciences from Stanford and an MBA from UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, she has held executive roles spanning product management, marketing, partner ecosystems, and organizational operations. Her work has increasingly focused on advancing environmental data access and decision-making tools. As Senior VP of Marketing & Business Development at Socrata, she helped governments harness open data for greater transparency and resource management. At Esri, she founded and led Esri’s geospatial developer business unit, enabling wider integration of location intelligence into conservation, land-use planning, and environmental monitoring applications, among others. Her career reflects a commitment to translating complex science and technology into tools for ecological resilience and sustainability.

Tyler joined CBI in August 2022 as a software engineer. In previous lives, he has taught high school math and computer science, written software tools for computer animation, and worked as a field biology technician tracking moose calves in northern Idaho. He has always been interested in ecology, sustainability and appropriate technology. 

After growing up on the shores of Puget Sound, Tyler studied computer science at Middlebury college with a particular focus on spatial computing, exploring cartographic design alongside geospatial algorithms. His previous experiences as a GIS analyst and a wildlife technician enable him to communicate effectively with a variety of professionals, and inform the decisions he now makes as a software engineer situated in the world of conservation biology. 

Currently back in the Pacific Northwest, Tyler gets his kicks canoeing, backpacking, and checking the surf forecast.

Moriah Van Voorhis is a GIS Analyst with experience using spatial analysis to aide in the management of declining species. She takes interest in exploring the complexities and patterns present on a landscape to catalyze solutions for the restoration of natural ecosystems. She holds an M.S. in Fisheries, Wildlife, and Conservation Biology from North Carolina State University.  Her areas of expertise and interest include geographic information systems, species distribution, remote sensing, connectivity modeling, and conservation planning.