Annie joined the CBI team in July of 2016. She has a B.S. in Environmental Science with a minor in Environmental Law and Policy from Oregon State University and a graduate certificate in GIS from Penn State University. While working as an intern under environmental lawyers with the intention of becoming one herself, Annie recognized the power of data and spatial analysis in the conservation planning field and changed course to a career in geospatial sciences. She is particularly interested in the management of water resources and sustainable city planning. Prior to joining CBI, Annie worked as an assistant data manager for the National Park Service’s Sonoran Desert Network, developing databases and performing data analysis for the network’s birds, groundwater, springs, and streams protocols.
Annie is a native of Santa Barbara, CA and currently resides in Corvallis, Oregon. She spends her free time rock climbing, hiking, baking, and traveling.
Dr. Thompson’s background includes a blend of landscape and wildlife ecology, specializing in the relationship between large-scale habitat change and the interactions between predators, competitors, and prey. He has worked with a wide variety of sensitive carnivore species, including black-footed ferrets, island fox, swift fox, bald eagles, and mountain lions in numerous western states. He has served as a technical advisor for wildlife-related issues to numerous organizations and efforts, including the Dinkey Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Project in the Sierras, the Blackfoot-Swan Landscape Restoration Project in northern Montana, and the California Academy of Sciences. Currently, he lives in Missoula, MT and is applying this background to the development of resiliency-based forest management regimes in both the Sierra Nevada and Rocky Mountain regions.
Deanne DiPietro is a geographer and conservation biologist with over 25 years of 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.
As Senior Science Coordinator at CBI she manages projects with multi-disciplinary teams that deliver practical solutions for a wide range of issues from endangered species recovery to community wildfire resilience. Her areas of expertise include science communications, stakeholder engagement, data management, and decision-support tool and digital library design. Deanne’s passion is to apply the latest science and data to protect natural systems while promoting human community resilience in this time of rapid change.
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/
Dustin Pearce joined the Conservation Biology Institute in December of 2015. His background in geospatial sciences has focused on the interplay of working agricultural lands, natural lands, and renewable energy development in the San Joaquin Valley of California. Growing up in the San Joaquin Valley, his connection with agricultural and working lands initiated his interest in biology. Watching the seasonal shifts in crops and the wildlife that surrounded the valley all developed his curiosity for the natural world that still drives him today. Finding just as much comfort in plowed fields as the backcountry of the Sierra Nevada, his upbringing has helped him understand the truly complex nature of humans’ interaction with different landscapes.
Dustin holds a M.E.S.M. in Economics and Politics of the Environment from the Bren School of Environmental Science & Management, and a B.S. in Conservation Biology from Arizona State University. His work with the Conservation Biology Institute is focused on stakeholder engagement and smart planning for renewable energy development throughout California.
Dustin lives and works remotely in Santa Barbara, California. He enjoys getting outside as much as possible, woodworking, metalworking, and exploring paved roads on his motorcycle.