research associates


NRCC has nearly two dozen research associates engaged in ecological and policy research, educational activities, and hands-on intervention in natural resource conservation programs and policy making. Most of NRCC's research associates work for other organizations—nongovernmental organizations, government agencies, and universities. Their affiliation with NRCC gives them a wider range of opportunities to carry out more integrative, interdisciplinary, conservation work. Our people combine broad practical experience with rigorous academic training, and they bring a variety of insights from disciplines ranging from conservation biology to policy sciences.

 

David Cherney, M.E.M.
David has conducted research on natural resource policy and management in California, Ecuador, and Greater Yellowstone. Based in Jackson, WY, he is involved in two major research projects. David heads the Greater Yellowstone big game migration project, where he is improving the use of reliable knowledge in decision making. He also is investigating science policy in Greater Yellowstone, trying to answer the question: can science serve us better in Greater Yellowstone? Learn more about David’s big game migration project.

Christina Cromley, Ph.D.
Christina is currently an analyst at the General Accounting Office and previously worked as the director of forest policy at American Forests in Washington, D.C. She has studied finding common interests in western natural resource management and published articles about grizzly bear management conflicts, the history of elk conservation, and co-edited a book on natural resource management and policy. Christina received her doctorate for her research on bison management from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.
Michael Gibeau, Ph.D.
Mike is the grizzly bear specialist for Parks Canada and an adjunct professor in the geography department at the University of Calgary. He investigates the impacts of human activity on grizzly bears and advises decision makers on management of the species in the Canadian Rocky Mountains. Mike has spent twenty-five years working in Canadian national parks, originally as a park warden and now as a biologist. He has extensive experience in the ecology and management of large carnivores, including research on coyotes, wolves, black bears, and grizzly bears. He has a Ph.D. in conservation biology from the University of Calgary. Learn more about Mike's grizzly project with Murray Rutherford in Banff.
Gloria Flora, B.S.
Gloria developed the non-profit organization, Sustainable Obtainable Solutions (S.O.S.) in Helena, Montana. Her goals are to contribute meaningfully to natural resource management, focusing on the principles of conservation biology and the value of people’s relationship to their landscapes and ensuring the sustainability of those landscapes. For more than twenty-two years Gloria worked with the U.S. Forest Service primarily in the Intermountain West, serving as the ecology resource leader on Wyoming’s Bridger-Teton National Forest and as forest supervisor on both the Lewis and Clark Forest in Montana and the Humbolt-Toiyabe in Nevada. Learn more about Gloria's S.O.S project.
Ann Harvey, M.S.
Ann is based in Jackson Hole where she has been active in field research, teaching, policy analysis, writing, editing, and conservation work. She has researched bighorn and Dall sheep, bald eagles, red tailed hawks, and peregrine falcons. Among the publications she has edited are "Rare, Sensitive, and Threatened Species of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem" and "A Sense of Place: An Atlas of Issues, Attitudes, and Resources in the Yellowstone to Yukon Ecoregion." She has published a variety of articles on natural resources policy. Ann currently chairs the National Wildlife Refuge Association and is working on building a nationwide grassroots constituency for refuges.
Lucina Hernández, Ph.D.
Lucina is working on a long-term project measuring the impact of changing climate factors and the various herbivore communities on the vegetation communities of the Mapimi desert of Mexico. She has done field research on coyotes in Mexico’s Chihuahuan Desert and on bison, elk, gray wolves, bighorn sheep, and cougars in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.
Timmothy Kaminski, M.S.
Timm is currently the founder of and a principal investigator for the Mountain Livestock Cooperative. He was formerly the Wildlife and Fish Program Leader for the Bridger-Teton National Forest, where he was involved with endangered species conservation, ecological monitoring, and landscape-level project design and implementation. Prior to joining the Bridger-Teton, he was a project leader and co-principal investigator for large carnivore conservation projects for the Southern Alberta Conservation Cooperative. Timm has published numerous journal articles, predominantly regarding gray wolf ecology. Learn more about Timm's Mountain Livestock Cooperative Initiative.  Learn more about Timm's and Cliff Nietvelt's analysis of linkage zones on Highway 287.
John Laundré, Ph.D.
John has done extensive field research on cougars in Idaho to create a system of protected areas and hunted areas that maintain long-term viable cougar populations. He will continue his research to outline how such a conservation plan could be implemented on a social and political level. John is currently living and working in Mexico. Learn more about John's cougar project
Pamela Lichtman, M.E.S.
Pam recently stepped down from her 9-year position as program director at the Jackson Hole Conservation Alliance, though she continues her professional work in the region. While at the Alliance, Pam supervised both private and public land conservation projects in Teton County and the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem and developed working relationships with landowners, government agencies, and non-profit organizations to promote conservation ideals. Pam was previously the private land director for the Alliance. She received her master's degree from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.
Carlos A. López González, Ph.D.
Carlos is the principal investigator for the jaguar research project in northern Mexico. His team is trying a dual approach to achieve the conservation of jaguars by describing the ecological needs of jaguars and purchasing lands to serve as a jaguar preserve. Learn more about Carlos's jaguar project.
Nicole Mazur, Ph.D.
Nicki is a scientist in the Social Sciences Program in the Bureau of Rural Sciences in Canberra, Australia. She also provides high-level advice to Commonwealth ministers and departments on impact assessments of sustainable development of rural industries. Currently, she is leading a project assessing public and stakeholder responses to aquaculture. Nicki has also developed environmental indicators for a local government State of the Environment report.
Steve Minta , Ph.D.
Steve is retired from the research faculty in wildlife ecology Environmental Studies Board, University of California, Santa Cruz. His most recent research was a long-term project to develop both large-scale monitoring methods for carnivores and a predictive approach for relating landscape attributes to carnivore distribution in the western Yellowstone. He received his doctorate on carnivore ecology and research methods from UC Davis.
Debra Patla, M.S.
Deb is conducting amphibian surveys and monitoring on Department of the Interior lands in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. Her work seeks to document species distribution and status as well as baseline information for determining if widespread declines are occurring.
Susan Patla, M.S.
Susan has conducted long-term research on northern goshawks in the Targhee National Forest of Wyoming and Idaho. She is currently the non-game wildlife biologist in the Jackson Hole area for the Wyoming Game and Fish Department, where she conducts surveys of trumpeter swans, bald eagles, amphibians, and other species. Learn more about Susan's goshawk project.  
Charles Peterson, Ph.D.
Chuck is a full professor of ecology and physiology in the department of biological sciences at Idaho State University and curator of herpetology at the Idaho Museum of Natural History. His research interests are in physiological and behavioral ecology, biogeography, and conservation biology of amphibians and reptiles.
Steven Primm, M.A.
Steve has over a decade of experience in field science and conservation planning for large carnivores. Since 1996 his emphasis has been on field research and on participatory conservation planning in southwest Montana. He participates actively on the Linkage Zone Working Group of the Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee and serves as a member of the Montana Grizzly Plan Working Group, which is developing grizzly conservation strategies for areas outside designated recovery zones. Learn more about Steve's Gravelly Range grizzly project.
Richard Reading, Ph.D.
Rich is the director of conservation biology at the Denver Zoological Foundation and an associate research professor at the University of Denver, where he teaches and advises graduate students. A major focus of Rich’s research has been on developing interdisciplinary approaches to conservation. He has published over fifty technical publications in several journals and books, written or edited four books, and produced dozens of popular articles, abstracts, and book reviews. He earned his Ph.D. in wildlife ecology from Yale in 1993. Learn more about Rich's current prairie dog conservation project.
Murray Rutherford, J.D., Ph.D.
Murray is an assistant professor in the School of Resource and Environmental Management at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, British Columbia, where he teaches law and natural resources, environmental impact assessment, and water policy and management. His Ph.D. dissertation at Yale University examined the evolution of ecosystem management policy in the U.S. Forest Service, with a focus on the Bridger-Teton National Forest in Wyoming. Learn more about Murray's grizzly work in Banff with Mike Gibeau.
Richard Wallace, Ph.D.
Rich is director of the environmental studies program at Ursinus College in Pennsylvania. In addition to running a problem-oriented undergraduate program, he is currently working with local organizations in the Philadelphia area on ecological restoration efforts. He received his doctorate from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, where he analyzed the social and organizational dimensions of marine mammal recovery under the U.S. Endangered Species Act. Rich recently collaborated with Tim Clark (NRCC) and Rich Reading (Denver Zoological Foundation) in editing a special issue of the Endangered Species Update entitled "An Interdisciplinary Approach to Endangered Species Recovery: Concepts, Applications, and Cases." He and Tim are currently working on a chapter for the forthcoming book The Endangered Species Act at 30: Lessons and Prospects (Island Press).
John Weaver, Ph.D.
John is a wildlife research biologist with the Wildlife Conservation Society. He was contracted by the research division of the U.S. Forest Service to develop a comprehensive analysis and integrated research agenda for conservation of lynx, wolverine, and fisher in the American West. John designed hair entrapments to collect specimens from wild lynx to develop population and genetic information to assist in lynx recovery and conservation.
Michael Whitfield, M.S.
Michael has conducted extensive field research on raptors in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem and has traveled to Kamchatka Peninsula, teaching ecology to Russian and American students while in the field. Mike is the executive director of the Teton Regional Land Trust and resides in Tetonia, Idaho. Learn more about Mike's eagle project. 
Seth Wilson, Ph.D.
Seth has worked on landscape connectivity issues in the western United States since he came to Montana in 1994. For his doctoral research at the University of Montana, he developed geospatial statistical models using GIS and logistic regression to predict factors that increase the likelihood of human-grizzly bear conflicts on private agricultural lands. He has been active in the Yellowstone to Yukon network. Learn more about Seth's participatory mapping project.