Deanne DiPietro is a geographer and conservation biologist with extensive experience applying science and information technology to conservation planning. Deanne has a B.S. in Botany and M.A. in Geography from University of California, Davis.
As Senior Science Coordinator at CBI Deanne manages projects with multi-disciplinary teams that deliver practical solutions for a wide range of conservation issues from endangered species recovery to community wildfire resilience. Her areas of expertise include science communications, data management, decision-support tools, stakeholder engagement, and digital libraries. Deanne’s current focus is conservation action prioritization, wildfire resilience planning, and endangered species monitoring and recovery.
Deanne lives and works in Sonoma County, California.
Stephanie joined the CBI team in August, 2017. She has an M.S. in Marine Resource Management from Oregon State University. Prior to joining CBI, Stephanie supported research projects at the Environmental Protection Agency’s Research Laboratory in Corvallis, Oregon by working as a researcher and project manager for the EPA’s on-site contractor. In this capacity, she managed and participated in studies comparing created and naturally occurring wetlands to provide regulators with information to improve management strategies and wetland mitigation project design. She also managed research to determine the health and status of streams and rivers across the twelve contiguous western states, research in Oregon Coast Range watersheds to evaluate and quantify the influence of human activities on native fish habitat, and managed Rapid Ecoregional Assessments (REA) for the BLM in the Colorado Plateau and Sonoran Desert ecoregions. For these and other projects, she trained and managed field crews, performed field work, managed project budgets, tracked and evaluated project deliverables, and managed and facilitated the activities of technical support staff and sub-contractors. A native Oregonian and avid equestrian, Stephanie lives in Corvallis with her two- and four-legged family members.
Esti Shay joined CBI in 2018. She is active in her local tech community, hosting educational meetups and running regional conferences. As a former librarian, she is perennially curious and always learning something new. She is a full-stack developer and manages the team’s accessibility guides.
Esti loves the Pacific Northwest, from the cloudy skies to the mossy trees, rhododendrons to rocky beaches. She prefers getting around on foot or by bicycle.
Kathleen Pollett is a Biologist with more than 20 years of experience specializing in endangered species, landscape ecology, and restoration. She has designed, permitted and carried out scientifically credible wildlife improvement projects throughout Central and Southern California. She has worked implementing large scale Habitat Conservation Programs in Southern California and designed research projects for stream breeding amphibians in Oregon. She has prepared trainings for Federally and State listed species to assist in project design and assessment. She has conducting extensive fieldwork throughout her career.
Bill is proud to have grown up in Oak Park, IL but has lived on the West Coast for most of his adult life. Bill studied philosophy at Occidental College and received his Masters in Mathematics Education from DePaul University. After teaching math at the high school and community college level in his twenties, Bill decided to learn how to program and defend wildlife with computers. He loves working with geospatial data because of its connection to mathematics and the beautiful visual displays that can be created. When Bill is not at CBI, he is usually watching David Attenborough documentaries, snowboarding, playing guitar, or expanding his collection of tropical house plants.
Phoebe is a biodiversity and climate change strategic planner, researcher (conservation biology and global change ecology), policy analyst and teacher. She was thrilled to join CBI in October 2018 as Chief Science and Policy Officer. Phoebe hopes to use her combined background in science research, policy, implementation, communication and collaboration to help CBI increase its impact and rigor even further. She is also an affiliate full professor at the University of Washington, Bothell and honorary research associate at the University of Cape Town’s (UCT’s) African Climate and Development Initiative since 2011 and Center of Excellence at the FitzPatrick Institute of African Ornithology since 2005.
Phoebe has previously been a senior science-policy consultant for the Center for Large Landscape Conservation, where she worked on global connectivity policy in both the terrestrial and marine environments through support to the IUCN Connectivity Conservation Specialist Group. Before that, she was executive director of the Pacific Biodiversity Institute (2017-2018), principle and lead scientist for climate change bioadaptation and head of biodiversity futures at the South African National Biodiversity Institute (2005-2016), founding national coordinator of Namibia’s national biodiversity (1994-2003) and climate change programs (1999), board and executive committee member of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (2002-05) and scientific and technological coordinator of the Global Invasive Species Program (2003-05).
A behavioral and evolutionary ecologist by background, she now works to build coalitions between academia, government, nonprofits and with citizen science groups at different scales on ecological connectivity, climate adaptation, economics for the future, and sustainability tipping points. Phoebe and her filmmaker husband John Bowey also work through film, immersive media, and prose to tell compelling and powerful stories about ecosystem health and biodiversity, among other big issues.
https://www.phoebebarnard.com/
Declan Pizzino is a Geospatial Analyst with the Conservation Biology Institute and has more than 5 years experience applying science and geospatial technology to support the conservation of natural resources. With a B.S. in Environmental Science and a certificate in Geographic Information Science from Oregon State University, Declan is excited to be part of a team that is focused on a science-based approach to improving the world. His areas of expertise and interest include geographic information systems, remote sensing, machine learning, modeling, and sustainability planning.
Declan’s love for the natural world has informed and enhanced his passion for conservation. Prior to joining CBI, he worked with the Nature Collective in San Diego, CA, on water quality monitoring and with Yamhill County Public Works in McMinnville, OR, to help develop a spatial roadside vegetation inventory. In Eugene, OR, he worked for Lane Council of Governments leveraging his GIS and interpersonal skills in the local government arena. Declan participates in a number of professional organizations and communities, including the Spatial Community Slack, AI for Conservation, Machine Learning for Remote Sensing, the Data Visualization Society, and the Society for Conservation GIS, where he serves on the Communications Committee.
Declan lives in Corvallis with his houseful of pets and plants. In his spare time, he loves to play Dungeons and Dragons, get outdoors and hike, play his mandolin, or explore local waterways in his handmade canoe.
As the Systems Administrator for Conservation Biology Institute, Robert brings 14 years of GNU/Linux, Windows and Mac administration and interoperability to CBI in a relentless quest to be a prime enabler.
His experience encompasses various forms of Systems Adminsistration and support of GNU/Linux, Mac and Windows based computing environments. This has ranged from the server side to the desktop with both custom and off the shelf software and hardware solutions.
Taylor is an Eastern Oregon native and has been interested in mathematics and computers since a young age. While at college, he studied computational geometry, topology, probability and computer graphics, as well as mathematical fundamentals of cryptography. He has since blended those interests by integrating computer graphics and the web with data visualization and environmental science, developing desktop- and web-based software to assist scientists in leveraging their data.