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TRI's Science and Conservation
Fellow Program
John Terborgh and Dave Foreman on
The Rewilding Institute's Green River Trip
To schedule a talk by a Rewilding
Institute Fellow,
Click
Here.
The Rewilding Institute distinguishes itself
among conservation organizations through its Fellow Program, which
brings together leading thinkers and strategists to advance the
approach of continental-scale conservation in North America. These
Fellows include both scientists and conservationists. Fellows are
not employees of TRI, but come from a variety of organizations,
institutions, and agencies to join together as the cauldron for new
conservation ideas.
| The
Rewilding Institute will do much of its work and outreach
through Institute Fellows of two kinds: Science Fellows and
Conservation Fellows, who will work closely together. A few
initial Fellows have already been accepted and others are being
invited. |
Science Fellows are prominent conservation
scientists in several fields, who are experienced in developing the
ideas and theories of continental conservation, and who are experts
in on-the-ground carnivore recovery and other ecological
restoration. Conservation Fellows are experienced and knowledgeable
leaders of the citizen conservation movement, who are dedicated to
integrating The Rewilding Institute approach into mainstream
conservation groups, advising TRI on strategies to make continental
conservation practical, and developing priorities to integrate
continental-scale conservation into policy.
Science and Conservation Fellows will work
together and will be invited to workshops on key issues and ideas.
TRI has already organized one Working Group of Fellows to develop
ecological guidelines for selection and design of Wilderness Areas
and a strategy for bring such guidelines to wilderness protection
groups and agencies. This EcoWild Working Group had an initial
meeting in Albuquerque this summer.
Fellows Soulè, Foreman, Parsons, Miller,
McKnight, and Humphrey met with John Terborgh and other TRI
supporters during a 10-day Green River float trip this summer.
Working groups and meetings for other key topics are being planned.
Some of the Fellows are available for
speaking engagements. Click Here
to inquire about speaking engagements in your area. This website
will also link to key articles by Fellows, and offer books by
Fellows. As they are added, new Fellows will be listed here.
TRI
Science Fellows
Michael E. Soulé
Senior Science Fellow
 Michael
Soulé is Professor Emeritus in Environmental Studies, University of
California, Santa Cruz. He was born, raised, and mostly
educated in California. After spending much of his youth in
the canyons, deserts, and intertidal of San Diego, and after
graduating from San Diego State, he went to Stanford to study
population biology and evolution under Paul Ehrlich. Upon
receiving his Ph.D. at Stanford, Michael went to Africa to help
found the first university in Malawi.
He has also taught in
Samoa, the Universities of California (San Diego and Santa
Cruz—where he was chair of Environmental Studies), and Michigan.
He has done field work on lizards, birds, and mammals in Africa,
Mexico, the Adriatic, the West Indies, and California, and Colorado.
Michael was a founder
of the Society for Conservation Biology and The Wildlands Project
and has been the president of both. He has written and edited
9 books on biology, conservation biology, and the social context of
contemporary conservation. He has published more than 150
articles on various subjects including population and evolutionary
biology, population genetics, island biogeography, environmental
studies, biodiversity policy, nature conservation, and ethics, and
continues to do research on the genetic basis of fitness and
viability in natural populations, on the impacts of “keystone”
species, and on the causes of the destruction of nature worldwide.
He was elected a
Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science,
has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, is the sixth recipient of the
Archie Carr Medal, was named by Audubon Magazine in 1998 as one of
the 100 Champions of Conservation of the 20th Century, and is a
recipient of the National Wildlife Federation’s 2001 National
Conservation Achievement Award.
Now living in
Colorado, Michael restores wildlife habitat, serves on the boards of
several conservation organizations, and consults internationally on
nature protection. Currently, he is writing a book about
diversity, self-realization, and compassion for all life.
Click Here to see Michael's
Published Work...
Jim Catlin
Wild Utah Project
Dave Maehr
University of Kentucky
 David
S. Maehr was born in Fairbanks, Alaska but was raised in the Midwest
where he spent many hours in the remnant wilds of southern Ohio and
eastern Kentucky. He has a B.S. in Wildlife Management from The
Ohio State University and an M.S. in Wildlife Ecology from the
University of Florida.
Dave received his Ph.D. in Wildlife Ecology and
Conservation while working with Larry Harris at the University of
Florida. He is currently associate professor of conservation biology
in the Department of Forestry, University of Kentucky, where he
examines the ecology, conservation, and restoration of large mammals
and other imperiled vertebrates.
His current research examines a naturally
colonizing bear population in eastern Kentucky, reintroduced elk,
and conservation of small black bear populations in Florida. From
1985 to 1994 he supervised Florida panther and black bear field
research on these listed species. His work has been instrumental in
targeting key conservation lands that will provide habitat and
movement linkages for wide-ranging carnivores. Dave has
authored over 120 articles on various topics including bird ecology,
carnivore conservation and ecology, eastern elk restoration,
conservation teaching, professionalism, and conservation planning.
He has also written or edited 3 books. Dave is
currently an Aldo Leopold Leadership Program fellow, Ocelot Recovery
Team co-leader for the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, is chair of The
Wildlife Society’s Certification Review Board, a member of the
Border Cats Working Group, and is on the Eastern Cougar Foundation’s
board of directors.
Click Here
to see Dave's Published Work...
Margo McKnight
Executive Director, The Wildlands Project
Brian Miller
Denver Zoo
 Brian
received a Ph.D. from the University of Wyoming in behavioral
ecology and conservation of black-footed ferrets and then was
awarded a Smithsonian Institution Post-doctoral Fellowship at the
Conservation and Research Center of the National Zoological Park.
From 1992 to
1997, Brian lived and worked in Mexico as a professor at the
National University of Mexico. At that time, he worked on
starting a protected area on the high plains of Chihuahua, Mexico
and then began an ongoing research project on jaguars and pumas in
the dry tropical forest of Jalisco, Mexico.
Currently,
Brian works as a conservation biologist for the Denver Zoological
Foundation where he is examining the impacts of wolf reintroduction
on the mammal community in Grand Teton National Park (in Wyoming).
His main research interest concerns the role of top carnivores in
regulating ecosystem processes, and how to improve protection for
carnivores when designing reserves. He is the lead author of
the Southern Rockies Wildlands Network Vision and coauthor
of Prairie Night.
David Parsons
Former head of Mexican wolf recovery team
 David
Parsons is a professional wildlife biologist. He received his
Bachelor of Science degree in Fisheries and Wildlife Biology from
Iowa State University and his Master of Science degree in Wildlife
Ecology from Oregon State University. Dave is retired from the
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service after 25 years with that agency.
From 1990-1999, he led the USFWS’s effort to
reintroduce the endangered Mexican gray wolf to portions of its
former range in Arizona and New Mexico. In 2000, he was
recognized by the International Wolf Center for his wolf
conservation efforts, and in 2001 was a recipient of the New Mexico
Chapter of The Wildlife Society’s annual “Professional Award.”
Dave’s interests include the ecology and conservation of large
carnivores, ecological restoration, protection and conservation of
biodiversity, and wildlands conservation at scales that fully
support ecological and evolutionary processes.
He is a steering committee member of the
Southern Rockies Wolf Restoration Project; a member of the Southwest
Gray Wolf Recovery Team; a graduate advisor in the Environmental
Studies Master of Arts Program at Prescott College, Arizona; a
science advisor to the Heritage Ranch Institute—a conservation
ranching initiative in New Mexico; a former member of the Board of
Directors of the New Mexico Wilderness Alliance; and the sole
proprietor of Parsons Biological Consulting—which provides technical
services, information, and policy advice on matters relating to
wildlife biology, wildlife ecology, wildlife conservation, and
wildlands conservation to conservation-minded clients. Dave
lives with his wife, Noralyn, in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Paul Paquet
Canadian wolf biologist
Don Waller
University of Wisconsin
 Don
Waller, Professor of Botany and Environmental Studies at the
University of Wisconsin-Madison, teaches courses in ecology,
evolution, field biology, and conservation biology. His research
interests include historical changes in plant communities, impacts
of habitat fragmentation and deer browsing on plant communities, and
the demography and genetics of plant populations. He has
worked in forests in Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Michigan,
Wisconsin, Jalisco, Mexico, and Panama.
He has also worked extensively with state and
federal resource agencies to improve forest and game management by
linking these with conservation biology. This work earned
several conservation awards and resulted in a book: Wild
Forests: Conservation Biology and Public Policy (Island
Press 1994) co-authored with botanist Bil Alverson and attorney
Walter Kuhlmann. Dr. Waller served as Editor-in-Chief of the
journal Evolution from 1999-2003 and is currently an
Associate Editor for Ecology Letters. Experiences with
overabundant deer led to his recent interest in bow hunting where
his skills remain mediocre.
Tom Rooney
 Tom
Rooney hails from
southeastern Pennsylvania, and spent countless days exploring the
Appalachian Mountains and the Wisconsin Northwoods. He has a B.A. in
Biology from The University of Delaware, and an M.S. in Biology from
Indiana University of Pennsylvania.
Tom completed his Ph.D. in
Botany while working with fellow Science Fellow Don Waller at the
University of Wisconsin. He was elected to Sigma Xi, an honor
society of scientists and engineers, and was named an EPA STAR
Fellow. He is currently an assistant professor in the Department of
Biology at Wright State University, where he investigates the the
ecological consequences of herbivore release following top predator
removal, and studies the dynamics biotic impoverishment through
time.
Tom is a population and
community ecologist best known for his work on how deer influence
the structure and dynamics of forest ecosystems. His research
interests are diverse, and he has addressed a number of ecological
processes including: how developmental constraints and climate
change influences future insect population distributions, trophic
cascades generated by predators in terrestrial systems, natural
history of summer wildflowers, and the assessment of conservation
value using geospatial and floristic data. He has authored over 30
peer-reviewed papers.
Allison Jones
 Allison
Jones received her B.A in Environmental Studies at the University of
California at Santa Cruz under the guidance of her mentor and
advisor, Michael Soule. She then completed her M.S in Conservation
Biology at the University of Nevada, Reno in 1996. Her Masters study
analyzed the effects of cattle grazing on small mammal communities
in the Great Basin.
Allison then went on to work as an endangered
species specialist for ecological consulting firms in Denver, and
then her new home in Utah, where she completed habitat analyses and
surveys for endangered plants, birds and mammals, as well as wetland
delineations. Allison is now working as the staff conservation
biologist for the Wild Utah Project (The Wildlands Project affiliate
for Utah, and also provider of GIS services to Utah's conservation
community).
In addition to collecting and assembling
biological data to be used in reserve design for the Colorado
Plateau and other parts of Utah, Allison also provides biological
analyses for Utah conservation groups that do not typically have
these services in-house. These include things such as literature
reviews, status reviews of rare species, and ecological analyses of
various federal land management plans and other actions. Allison is
currently the Principle Investigator on two different grazing
research projects in southern Utah.
TRI
Conservation Fellows
Dave Foreman
TRI Director, Senior Conservation Fellow, and Board President
 Dave
Foreman has worked as a wilderness conservationist since 1971.
From 1973 to 1980, he worked for The Wilderness Society as Southwest
Regional Representative in New Mexico and as Director of Wilderness
Affairs in Washington, DC.
He was a member of the board of trustees for
the New Mexico Chapter of The Nature Conservancy from 1976 to 1980.
From 1982 to 1988, he was editor of the Earth First! Journal.
Foreman is a founder of the Wildlands Project and was its Chairman
from 1991-2003 and executive editor or publisher of Wild Earth
from 1991-2003. He is now the Director and Senior Fellow
of The Rewilding Institute, a conservation “think tank” advancing
ideas of continental conservation.
He was a member of the national Board of
Directors of the Sierra Club from 1995 to 1997 and is currently a
member of the Board of Directors of the New Mexico Wilderness
Alliance. He speaks widely on conservation issues and is
author of The Lobo Outback Funeral Home (a novel),
Confessions of an Eco-Warrior,
The Big Outside (with Howie Wolke), and Rewilding North
America. Foreman is the lead author and network designer
of the Sky Islands Wildlands Network Conservation Plan and
the New Mexico Highlands Wildlands Network Vision from the
Wildlands Project.
Foreman received the 1996 Paul Petzoldt Award
for Excellence in Wilderness Education and was named by Audubon
Magazine in 1998 as one of the 100 Champions of Conservation of
the 20th Century. Foreman is a backpacker, river runner,
canoeist, fly-fisher, hunter, wilderness photographer, and
bird-watcher. He lives in his hometown of Albuquerque, New
Mexico.
To inquire about
arranging a lecture by Dave Foreman, please
contact us.
Kim Crumbo
NPS Ret., Arizona Wilderness Coalition
 Kim
is currently the Northern Representative for the Arizona Wilderness
Coalition and Wilderness Coordinator for the Grand Canyon Wildlands
Council. He is coordinating the conservationist's wilderness
recommendation, including a regional wildlands network design, for
the northern Arizona wilderness campaign.
Kim served
as the river ranger, resource management specialist and Wilderness
Coordinator for Grand Canyon National Park from 1980 to 1999.
As Wilderness Coordinator for the park, he provided guidance for NPS
wilderness preservation and management in the park and in park
documents. He also worked to rehabilitate or mitigate ground surface
disturbance within the Grand Canyon National Park proposed
wilderness, including the river corridor. He coordinated the
wilderness volunteer program, contributed to NEPA compliance
reviews, and assisted in exotic species inventory and removal. As
former board president of the Grand Canyon Wildlands Council, his
extensive understanding of ecosystem conservation, including
wildlands network design (WND), the precautionary approach, and
applied principles of conservation biology have significantly
contributed to the development and implementation of a Grand Canyon
Ecoregion WND.
Kim also worked as a professional river guide
and as Wilderness Coordinator for the Sierra Club in Utah. Before
his work on rivers and wilderness, he spent four years with the
Navy’s SEAL Team One completing two combat deployments to Vietnam.
Kim received a B.S. in Environmental Studies from Utah State
University, with postgraduate work in outdoor recreation. His
publications include
A River Runners Guide to the History of Grand Canyon, a
chapter in Grand Canyon: Intimate Views, an article in the
International Journal of Wilderness titled Wilderness Management
at Grand Canyon: Waiting For Godot?, and an article about the
ecological impacts of roads in Wild Earth magazine.
Monique DiGiorgio
Executive Director of the Southern Rockies Ecosystem Project
 Monique
earned a B.S. in Biology from the University of Notre Dame and has
been working for 10 years in the field of conservation biology and
ecology. For the first six years of her career, Monique worked
as a field biologist with a focus in ornithology. She spent
much of her time nest searching and conducting behavioral
observations, which took her from New South Wales, Australia
studying the satin bowerbird, to San Diego, California studying the
rufous-crowned sparrow, as well as many other places in between.
This work has allowed her to cultivate
relationships with agencies, universities and non-profits and has
given her a breadth of experience in ecology and non-profit
dynamics. More recently, Monique has been working in non-profit
management and development with conservation groups such as Friends
of Milwaukee's Rivers, Menomonee Valley Partners, and the Southern
Rockies Ecosystem Project, where she brings experience in
fundraising, program development, capacity building, and
relationship building.
Currently, Monique is the executive director of the Southern
Rockies Ecosystem Project (SREP) and is spearheading the
implementation of the "Southern Rockies Wildlands Network Vision".
She was instrumental in forging new and unique relationships with
the Federal Highway Administration and the Colorado Department of
Transportation to discuss the impacts that roads have on wildlife
populations and landscape permeability. Under her supervision,
SREP is identifying and prioritizing the most critical wildlife
corridors in the state of Colorado and will be making site-specific
recommendations on where highway mitigation measures such as
overpasses and underpasses should be placed.
John Davis
Wild Earth founding editor
 John
Davis has been active in the wilderness and wildlife protection
movement since college, two decades ago. For most of that
period, he has worked closely with Dave Foreman.
John served as editor of the Earth First!
Journal from 1986 to 1989. In 1990, John co-founded Wild
Earth magazine with Dave and with Reed Noss, David Johns, and
Mary Byrd Davis. John served as editor of Wild Earth from
1991 to 1997, when his life-long friend Tom Butler assumed
editorship so that John could go to California and serve as
Biodiversity & Wildness program officer of the Foundation for
Deep Ecology. John left that position in 2002 to focus
much of his time on protecting a wildlife corridor -- now called
Split Rock Wildway -- linking the Adirondack Mountains in
northern New York with the Champlain Valley to the east.
John now serves as land steward for the
Eddy Foundation's conservation land holdings in Split Rock
Wildway and strives to serve as a scout and ranger for other
wildlands westward, as well. He also continues to edit
various environmental publications. John serves on the
boards of the Wildlands Project, RESTORE: The North Woods,
the Conservation Land Trust, and several other conservation
groups. He lives with his two cats, Taiga and Ptarmigan,
in a cabin on a Beaver pond in the eastern Adirondacks.
Susan Morgan
Forest Guardians
Susan Morgan, PhD, is a contract writer and
designer in Albuquerque. She holds degrees in English and
environmental studies, with emphasis on wildlands conservation.
Susan received the graduate award for her doctoral study on the
history of conservation advocacy and conservation biology and how
these two shaped The Wildlands Project. She has taught high school
English and environmental studies at the community college level. In
1968 she began as Director of Education for The Wilderness Society
and has subsequently worked on wilderness, wildlands, and public
lands conservation for thirty-nine years. Susan most recently served
as communications director for Forest Guardians, coordinating print
publications and electronic outreach.
Dr. Robert Howard
Former Wildlands Project Board President
 Dr.
Robert E. "Bob" Howard is a retired Pathologist and Medical School
professor, management and computing consultant, and longtime
volunteer conservation activist. For over three decades, Bob
has worked for wilderness protection and in other areas of
conservation including clean air, clean water and water source
protection, solar energy and energy efficiency, recycling,
international, Alaska, Superfund, and other conservation campaigns,
and many state and local campaigns.
He also has done state and federal level
lobbying, and been involved with all aspects of political process.
He has held senior executive positions with several for-profit and
non-profit corporations. During the 1970s and 1980s he
was an organizer and Director of the New Mexico Wilderness Study
Committee, and Chairperson of the Sierra Club's Rio Grande Chapter.
At the national level of the Sierra Club, he was a Director, Vice
President, and Treasurer. More recently, he has been cofounder
and Chairperson of the New Mexico Wilderness Alliance and President
of the Wildlands Project, and is still a Director of both.
Dr. Howard's strengths are in organization,
management, planning, and training. He
is an experienced professional consultant with broad background as
physician, scientist, manager, and computing specialist. He is
knowledgeable about business systems and computing, and is a skilled
speaker and teacher, meeting leader, systems analyst, planner, and
problem solver. His consulting services included top-level
management assistance with planning and adaptation to change,
analysis of opportunities, and quality assurance.
For several organizations he has helped develop
successful grant proposals, much of the administrative
infrastructure, and pushed for a broad philosophy and program.
Having lived and worked in all
parts of the United States, he has
"on-the-ground" familiarity with diverse conservation situations,
and his understanding bridges both the science and conservation
arenas.
Bob is a
major coauthor of the Sky Islands Wildlands Network
Conservation Plan, the New Mexico Highlands Wildlands
Network Vision, and the Southern Rockies Wildlands
Network Vision. He contributed particularly to
development of the "Wounds to the Land" framing of ecological
damage, to the "Healing the Wounds" approach to ecological
restoration, and to the concepts and details of wildlands network
plan implementation through conservation action.
Craig Miller
Defenders of Wildlife
Craig Miller has been active with wildlife conservation in the
Southwest since the late 80's and has led Defenders of Wildlife's
regional programs as Southwest Representative since 1993. He
has served on federal recovery teams for the cactus-ferruginous
pygmy-owl and the gray wolf, as well as the steering committee for
the Lower Colorado River Multi-species Conservation Plan.
Craig is co-founder and active board member of Northern Jaguar
Project
www.northernjaguarproject.org and former board member of the
Arizona League of Conservation Voters. He also currently
serves on the steering committee of the Southern Rockies Wolf
Restoration Project, the executive committee of the Grand Canyon
Wolf Recovery Project and as the undefeated soccer coach of Tucson's
Southside Scorpions. He received a Bachelor of Sci. in Public
Administration/Natural Resources from Northern Arizona University
and is an alumnus of Lesley College Graduate School and the National
Audubon Society Expedition Institute. Brian
O’Donnell
Wilderness Support Center
As the executive director for the Alaska
Wilderness League, Brian was instrumental in efforts to block oil
companies from drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. He
successfully led AWL's efforts to defend Alaska's wilderness from
numerous legislative anti-environmental attacks.
Brian was a lead organizer for the first
Wilderness Mentoring Conference in May 1998. Together with
Melyssa Watson, and Bart Koehler, Brian started the Wilderness
Support Center in late 1998; he is associate director.
Brian was a co-founder of the Nevada Wilderness Coalition and the
West Virginia Wilderness Coalition.
In 2000, Brian helped lead the successful
effort to protect Nevada’s Black Rock Desert and High Rock Canyon
region as wilderness. Brian recently helped secure
congressional protection for more than 450,000 acres of wilderness
in southern Nevada. He currently works on wilderness campaigns
throughout the country including the Nevada wilderness campaign and
West Virginia wilderness campaign.
Max Oelschlaeger
Northern Arizona University
Max is the McAllister Endowed Chair in
Community, Culture, and Environment at Northern Arizona University.
His work engages the messy interface between cultural and natural
systems using an interdisciplinary approach. His recent teaching has
been in the areas of ecological restoration and also the past,
present and future of the greater Grand Canyon bioregion.
Recent books include The Idea of Wilderness
(Yale UP), Caring for Creation (Yale UP), and Texas Land
Ethics (Texas UP) with Pete A. Y. Gunter. Recent articles have
appeared in Natural Resources Journal, Future, and
Sign System Studies. Max is a board member of Arizona
Humanities Council, the Museum of Northern Arizona (where he served
as Acting Director for six months), the Grand Canyon Wildlands
Council, the Arizona Wilderness Coalition, and Environmental Ethics,
Inc. Max and spouse Mary increasingly split time between Flagstaff,
Arizona, and New Mexico.
Matt Clark
 Matt is
from Albuquerque, New Mexico, where he grew up against the
foothills of the Sandia Mountain Wilderness. Matt received a
B.S. in Environmental Sciences and a minor in Leadership Studies
from Denver University in 1994.
Matt has worked in various
capacities for organizations such as the Sky Island Alliance (SIA),
the New Mexico Wilderness Alliance
(NMWA) , The Wildlands Project and the Grand Canyon
Wildlands Council.
Matt played an important role in the NM Statewide BLM Wilderness
Inventory conducted by NMWA, in which he worked to
integrate ecological principles for protected area design into
proposed wilderness area boundary selection, and coordinated the
development of detailed comments for the National Forest Roadless
Area Policy. With SIA, he conducted research for the Sky
Islands Wildlands Network. He went on to be coordinator and
co-author of the New Mexico Highlands Wildlands Network and
Conservation Vision, and is currently performing a similar role to
develop the Grand Canyon Wildlands Network and Conservation Vision.
He spent the summer of 2003 as a
Eugene-Polk Fellow with the Grand Canyon National Park Foundation on
the North Rim, where he conducted field research on carnivore
community assembly. Most recently, Matt earned a Graduate
Certificate in Conservation Ecology from Northern Arizona
University.
His interests include:
preservation of wilderness, conservation biology and wildlands
network design, addressing barriers to wildlife movement, predator
conservation and top down regulation of ecosystems, restoration
ecology, and the socio-political factors that influence wildlands
and wildlife management. Matt specializes in collaborative
initiatives that work to achieve common goals of conservation,
restoration and sustainability.
Jack Humphrey
Tale Chaser Publishing, Former Director of Sky Island Alliance
Jack was the grass roots coordinator and fundraiser for the Sky
Island Wildlands Network design project. After working "in the
trenches" as a professional non-profit organizer, activist, trainer,
and director for several organizations over an 11-year span, Jack
struck out on his own and started Tale Chaser Publishing, Inc.
From his work on the ground in the Sky Islands
of New Mexico, Arizona, and Northern Mexico, Jack understands all
too well the urgency and gravity of our current ecological crisis as
outlined in Dave Foreman's 'Rewilding
North America.'
Although Jack's professional focus is building
a successful online publishing company and as a publicity consultant
for several large and small web businesses, he has dedicated his
extra time and resources to furthering the goals of The Rewilding
Institute and making continental conservation a top-of-mind issue
for conservationists and policy makers.
Jack's company handles this website. All
technical questions and problems should be directed to
this address for a fast response.
To schedule a talk by a Rewilding Institute Fellow,
Click Here.
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