Announcing New & Re-elected Members for SCB North America Board
To those of you who voted in the SCB North America election – thank you! The votes are in, and we are excited to announce the following new members of the SCB North America Board:
Martha Groom, Vice President for Education & Chapters
Professor, University of Washington, Bothell
I am endlessly fascinated by teaching and learning, and helping people gain capacities and understandings about conservation as a field and practice. I have been teaching conservation since the mid-1990s. Currently, I’m an active member of the Education committee, and have been on the parallel committee of SCB Global in the past. I am the lead author/editor of Principles of Conservation Biology (2006) in its third edition, and currently working on open source exercises in conservation. I co-founded and led a training program for graduate students in interdisciplinary pedagogy at UWB, and for the past nine years have served as the faculty lead of the undergraduate Doris Duke Conservation Scholars Program at the University of Washington. I have co-led many teaching workshops at NACCB and other conservation meetings, and will co-host an interactive session on conservation literacies at the NACCB at Reno this July. I am particularly interested in supporting exploration of the multiple literacies that could be promoted among conservation students today.
Brendan Reid, Equity, Inclusion & Diversity Officer
Postdoctoral Researcher, Rutgers University
I’m currently a postdoc at Rutgers University, and my work deals mainly with quantifying and conserving genetic diversity and adaptive potential. I became interested in EID issues at the 2018 NACCB meeting in Toronto, and with the previous EID officer (Gerald Singh), I coordinated a symposium on allyship at NACCB 2020 and initiated production of a video interview series highlighting the experiences of people from traditionally excluded groups in conservation. As the EID officer I hope to serve as a conduit for all members of the Society to express their concerns and experiences, and I plan to work with the SCBNA board and coordinate with SCB Global and outside organizations to plan initiatives that address these concerns at the society level and beyond.
Anna Weber, Student Representative
PhD Candidate, University of New Orleans
Originally hailing from Michigan, Anna is currently a PhD candidate in the Biological Sciences
Department at the University of New Orleans (Louisiana). Her dissertation research uses genetic tools to better understand the reproductive ecology, demographic history, and evolution of wild mandrills, a vulnerable and understudied primate endemic to central Africa. She is also interested in science outreach and policy. Anna lives in New Orleans with her dog and cat (and sometimes an additional foster animal), and in her free time she enjoys spending time outdoors, traveling, cooking, and practicing Brazilian jiu-jitsu.
Re-elected Members:
Lauren Jonaitis, Member at Large
Senior Conservation Director, Tropical Audubon Society
Her background includes science communication, environmental permitting/policy, land use planning and coastal ecology. Previously, she worked for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) in the Imperiled Species Management Section where she worked to reduce artificial light pollution impacts to sea turtles and their nesting habitat. She then moved to the private sector where she was an Environmental / Coastal Scientist, focusing on environmental permitting and dune restoration/maintenance efforts. Currently she serves as the Senior Conservation Director for Tropical Audubon Society where she is responsible for strengthening Tropical Audubon’s policy capacity for conservation efforts, and for deepening engagement with local, state, and federal governments to enhance Tropical Audubon’s conservation impact. This includes developing Tropical Audubon’s influence in Miami Dade County (MDC) conservation policy for the organization’s strategic focal areas: Bird Conservation, Everglades Protection and Restoration, Biscayne Bay, Smart Growth and Climate Change.
Alysha Cypher, Chapters Representative
Prince William Sound Science Center
I spent my childhood in landlocked Pennsylvania obsessed with the ocean and getting lost in Rachel Carson books. When I finally got the chance to explore tide pools on the coasts of Maine, I was hooked. Today I am a postdoctoral research with NOAA Fisheries in a Conservation Medicine program where I study the effects of pollution, particularly oil spills, on the physiology of forage fish. While I am an ecotoxicologist/physiologist by trade, I am a conservation biologist at heart. The goal of much of my work is to identify physiological indicators of environmental perturbation in order to better monitor and manage marine fish populations. Although I am not a conventional conservation biologist, I have been a passionate member of SCB since 2010, particularly when it comes to chapters. Chapters are an incredibly unique part of SCB that allow early career scientists to connect and make a difference in their local communities. My experience founding a chapter and then continuing with the Chapters Committee has allowed me to observe this first hand. My goal with SCB is to maintain this legacy of bringing passionate conservationists together so that we can share ideas and maintain a positive outlook.
Our deepest gratitude to outgoing board members, Gerald Singh, Jessica Pratt, and Melissa Cronin for their dedication and service to SCB North America.
