SCBNA Board of Directors
Executive Committee
Rebecca McCaffery, United States Geological Survey
President
Term: 1 July 2021 – 30 June 2023
Rebecca McCaffery is a Wildlife Biologist. She resides in Bozeman, MT, but most of her work takes place on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington state, where she works with the Olympic National Park, local tribes, and agency and academic biologists on projects aimed at conserving, restoring, and effectively monitoring diverse species and ecosystems of interest in the area. Her focus is on understanding and estimating population and community dynamics of focal species and systems in relation to processes such as climate change, land use, and river restoration following dam removal. Rebecca received her PhD from the University of Montana, with research focused on montane amphibians. She has had a long involvement with SCB, starting with her work on the board of the Montana chapter. In her spare time, she loves hiking, skiing, camping, baking, gardening, riding her bicycle, and adventuring with her family.
Karen Root, Bowling Green State University,
Past-President
Term: 1 July 2021 – 30 June 2023
Karen Root is a faculty member of the Department of Biological Sciences at Bowling Green State University leading the Conservation Biology and Population Ecology Lab (karenroot.net). Her research over the last 24 years has focused on the conservation of native biodiversity, including ecological surveys, habitat and population modeling, and conservation planning and management. Combining ecological fieldwork with the application of quantitative techniques, such as G.I.S., habitat modeling, and risk assessment, she addresses conservation issues across many scales, temporal and spatial. In collaboration with the Green Ribbon Initiative (oakopenings.org), much of her recent research focuses on ecology and conservation in the biodiversity hotspot of the Oak Openings Region of Northwest Ohio.
Rebecca Hufft, Denver Botanic Gardens, Treasurer & President-Elect
Term: 1 July 2020 – 30 June 2023; 7 November 2022 – 30 June 2023
Dr. Hufft is the Associate Director of Applied Conservation at Denver Botanic Gardens, where she has overseen plant conservation projects since 2011. Prior to coming to the Gardens, she received her doctorate in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from the University of California Santa Cruz, conducted a postdoctoral fellowship at Colorado State University, and served as a Senior Supervising Scientist at the National Ecological Observatory Network. She is a broadly trained conservation biologist whose research interests include restoration, ex situ conservation, long-term monitoring, and phenology. She served as co-chair for the North American Congress for Conservation Biology 2020.
Brendan Reid, Rutgers University
Equity, Inclusion and Diversity Officer
Term: 1 July 2022 – 30 June 2025
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.
Vice President Members
Erin Sexton, Flathead Biological Station, University of Montana,
Vice President for Policy & Programs
Term: 1 July 2020 – 30 June 2023
Erin is a Senior Research Scientist with the Flathead Lake Biological Station, at the University of Montana. Erin’s research focus includes transboundary rivers between the US and Canada, with an emphasis on aquatic ecology and conservation biology, in our shared transboundary watersheds, between British Columbia, Alberta and Montana. Erin is involved in coordinating cross-border research, assessment of mining impacts and ecological condition and the application of science to environmental decision-making. Erin lives in NW Montana with her family. They enjoy skiing, hiking, biking, playing on the river and gardening.
Martha Groom, University of Washington, Bothell,
Vice President for Education & Chapters
Term: 1 July 2022 – 30 June 2025
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.
Representative Members
Anna Weber, University of New Orleans,
Student Representative
Term: 1 July 2022 – 30 June 2025
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.
Alysha Cypher, Prince William Sound Science Center
Chapters Representative
Term: 1 July 2019 – 30 June 2025
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.
Members at Large
Paige Olmsted, Smart Prosperity Institute, University of Ottawa,
Term: 1 July 2020 – 30 June 2023
Paige is an environmental scientist whose research focuses how we account for, make decisions about, and value nature – from a personal as well as economic standpoint. At the Smart Prosperity Institute Paige leads a conservation finance initiative, examining financial mechanisms and enabling conditions to catalyze interest and investment to support ecosystem services and the natural world. Her expertise centers around ecosystem services, nature-based solutions for climate change, ecological economics, and environmental and relational values. With a common thread of connecting people and nature, her work has spanned rural agricultural settings in Latin America and South East Asia, to advocating for change in international policy settings, to providing sustainability guidance to private sector actors. In this work and past positions at the Earth Institute in New York City and UNEP in Geneva, she enjoys working with a range of stakeholders to address conservation challenges — including local communities, NGOs, various scales of government, academia, and the private sector. Paige maintains affiliations with the CHANS (Connecting Human and Natural Systems) Lab at UBC, and the Copenhagen Business School as part of the Impact for Innovation Lab. She holds a PhD from the Institute of Resources, Environment and Sustainability at UBC and a Master’s of Environmental Science and Policy from Columbia University.
Lauren Jonaitis, Tropical Audubon Society
Term: 1 July 2019 – 30 June 2025
Lauren Jonaitis’ 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.
Lauren received her bachelor’s degree in Zoology from the State University of New York at Oswego and an M.S. in Biology with a focus in Conservation Biology and Population Ecology from Bowling Green State University. She enjoys anything to do with wildlife and nature, traveling, art, meditation, horseback riding and currently resides in Miami, Florida.
Staff
Megan Keville, Director of Operations
Megan Keville’s background includes positions and research in science communication, restoration ecology, fire science and ecosystem ecology. Prior to joining SCBNA, Megan served as research coordinator in the Restoration Ecology Lab in the University of Montana’s College of Forestry and Conservation, and as co-coordinator with the Northern Rockies Fire Science Network. She also edited and produced the Society for Ecological Restoration’s quarterly newsletter. Megan received a B.A. in biology from Carleton College, MN, and an M.S. in Resource Conservation from the University of Montana. Megan lives and works in Weaverville, California.
Julianna Duran, Communications Intern & Conference Assistant
Julianna Duran is a Master’s student at North Carolina State University studying diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice in Environmental Conservation. She received a bachelor’s degree in Wildlife Conservation from Virginia Tech and is from Washington D.C. She has a background in wildlife biology, human dimensions, and social media analytics.
Former Interns
Alexis Canney, Communications Intern
Alexis Canney is a master’s student in conservation and restoration science at the University of California, Irvine. She has a background in nonprofit fundraising and environmental education. She received a bachelor’s degree in Environmental Studies from Vassar College, NY and is from Brooklyn, NY.