Alumni – Conservation Action Lab

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ALEJANDRO ACEVEDO

Post-doc 1998 – 2001: Foraging ecology of Balaenoptera whales.

Professor, Western Washington University

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CLARE ASLAN

Post-doc – shared with Zavaleta Lab: Preventing extinctions on islands by quantifying the prevalence of widowed symbionts and testing the potential for taxon substitutions to replace lost mutualists.

Director, School of Earth & Sustainability
Associate Professor, Northern Arizona University

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DEBORAH AUSTIN

Post-doc 2005 – 2006: Foraging ecology of pelagic predators

Senior Science Advisor, Fisheries and Oceans Canada

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MILA BOCK

Senior Thesis Intern 2010: Examining effects of rat removal on intertidal communities on Rat (Hawadax) Island.

Assistant Preserves Manager, Laramie Foothills, The Nature Conservancy

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ELSA BONNAUD

Visiting Scholar 2008: Global review of island invasive cat diet.

Lecturer, Universite Paris-Sud 11, Orsay

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ABE BORKER

MS 2012: Acoustic Activity as a Low Cost and Scalable Index of Seabird Colony Size: An Example with Forster’s Terns (S. fosterii)
PhD 2018: Applying ecoacoustics to bird conservation and monitoring

Faculty Co-Director, Doris Duke Conservation Scholars Program
Assistant Teaching Professor, UC Santa Cruz

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DANA BRISCOE

PhD 2009, co-advised with Griggs Lab: Predicting locations of foraging hotspots for pelagic predators

Research Associate, Hopkins Marine Station, Stanford University

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STACEY BUCKELEW

MS 2007: Impacts of biological traits and anthropogenic threats on seabird extinction risk

Data Coordinator, Axiom Data Science

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TOSHA COMENDANT

Post-doc 2002 – 2003: Impacts of invasive rats on island endemic reptiles

Senior Conservation Scientist, Conservation Biology Institute

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MELISSA CRONIN

PhD 2022: Untangling Bycatch: An interdisciplinary approach to measure and mitigate shark and ray capture in industrial tuna fisheries.

Mobula Conservation
Smith Fellow, Duke University

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JEN CURL

Senior Thesis Intern 2007: Impact of rat eradication on native passerines

Student, Department of Biology & Wildlife, University of Alaska Fairbanks

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JOE CUTLER

PhD 2019: Biodiversity, Biogeography, and Conservation of Freshwater Fishes in Gabon

Ichthyologist, National Geographic

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ASHA DE VOS

Post-doc: 2014 – 2016: Decreasing Blue Whale ship strike mortality off southern Sri Lanka

Pew Fellow in Marine Conservation

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LUZ DE WIT

PhD 2019: Invasive Cats, Toxoplasmosis and Biodiversity: Using Public Health as a Lever for Conservation

Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Vermont

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JOSH DONLAN

MS 2000: Impacts of invasive herbivores on island plant communities.

Founding Director, Advanced Conservation Strategies

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JUAN PABLO GALAVAN

LEADS Intern 2005: Global review of rodent eradications

Land Use Manager, Save Mount Diablo

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MYRA FINKELSTEIN

PhD 2003: New methods for measuring impacts of toxin exposure on wild birds and ecotoxicology of endangered albatross

Adjunct Associate Professor, University of California Santa Cruz

AARON HEBSHI

Senior Thesis Intern 2001: Foraging ecology of cormorants

Board of Directors, Oikonos

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REINA HEINZ

Senior Thesis Intern 2010: Preventing seabird extinctions by compiling a database of breeding islands for the world’s threatened seabirds

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BILL HENRY

PhD 2011: Protecting seabirds by understanding how range expansion impacts at-sea behavior, diet, contaminant loads and population growth

Director, Groundswell Coastal Ecology

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SUSY HONIG

PhD 2015: Integrating marine and terrestrial atoll conservation by examining the impact of seabirds on coral reef health

Program Director, Academic Excellence (ACE) Program, UC Santa Cruz

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SARAH HORWATH

LEADS Intern 2008: GIS-based analysis of biodiversity of the world’s islands

Aquatic Biologist, ICF International

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HOLLY JONES

Senior Thesis Intern 2003 – 2004: Impacts of invasive rats on seabirds

Assistant Professor, Northern Illinois University

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BRAD KEITT

MS 1999: Conservation of the endangered Black-vented Shearwater

Oceans and Islands Program Director, American Bird Conservancy

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CAROLYN KURLE

PhD 2008: Introduced rats indirectly change marine rocky intertidal communities from algae to invertebrate dominated

Professor, University of California San Diego

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KIM LA PIERRE

LEADS Intern 2006: Prioritization of invasive species eradication on Alliance for Zero Extinction islands

Postdoctoral Fellow, Berkeley Initiative for Global Change Biology, University of California Berkeley

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MIKE LITZOW

MS 1999: Foraging ecology of Pigeon Guillemonts

Scientist, Farallon Institute

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MARTA LOPEZ-DARIAS

Visiting Scholar 2004: Introduced ground squirrels on Natividad Island, Mexico: impacts and eradication feasibility

Postdoctoral Researcher, Island Ecology and Evolution Research Group, CSIC-IPNA

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LULI MARTINEZ

PhD 2021: Hawksbill Sea Turtle Ecology & Conservation

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ERIN MCCRELESS

PhD: Quantifying impacts of invasive mammals on globally threatened insular vertebrate species, and development of optimization tools to prioritize invasive mammal eradications on islands

Post-doc, Oregon State University

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MATTHEW MCKOWN

Post-doc 2011 – 2014: Design, deployment, and analysis of acoustic monitoring projects.

CEO, Conservation Metrics

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HARMONY PATRICIO

Visiting Scholar

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HOYT PECKHAM

PhD 2008, co-advised with Estes Lab: Impacts of small scale fisheries bycatch on loggerhead turtle populations and development of community-based fishing exclusion zones.

Founding Director, SmartFish
Director, Small Scale Fisheries, Wildlife Conservation Society

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MARLOES POORTVLIET

PhD 2015, University of Groningen, the Netherlands: Genetics of manta and devil rays: evolution, population genetics and conservation of a group of vulnerable pelagic filter feeders

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FLAVIO QUINTANA

Post-doc 1997: Foraging ecology of Patagonian seabirds

Researcher, Wildlife Conservation Society Argentina

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ANGELA QUIROS

PhD 2016: Linking terrestrial and marine protected areas at the coastal interface

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DIANA RUIZ

PhD 2020: Strategic planning for biodiversity and ecosystem services: Assessing targets and actions in seabird and water conservation

Director, Native Land Conservancy

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KUO-WEI “STANLEY” SHEN

MS Student: Protecting Chinese Crested Tern breeding islands via conservation action and monitoring population size to evaluate the effectiveness of the conservation measures.

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LEV SLEVIN

Packard Environment Fellow 2010: Creating a sustainable social business that will make bio-acoustic monitoring and outcome-based performance metrics available to a wide range of bird conservation and restoration projects.

Principal at Venturesome Consulting