Brett Dickson – Ecologist

Brett received a Ph.D. in Fish, Wildlife, and Conservation Biology from Colorado State University in 2006, where his research focus was on the response of avian communities to landscape-level prescribed fire experiments in ponderosa pine forests of Arizona and New Mexico. He received a Master of Science degree in Forestry (2001) from Northern Arizona University and a Bachelor of Science degree in Conservation Biology (1996) from San Jose State University. Brett's other research interests include the use of spatial models in ecology, carnivore biology, and quantifying the effects of disturbance, fragmentation and urbanization on wildlife communities. Brett is a postdoctoral fellow with the ForestERA project where his responsibilities include the development and application of empirically-based wildlife and forest treatment models.

Haydee Hampton – Project Manager / Spatial Analyst

Haydee received a Bachelor of Science degree in Environmental Resources Engineering (1985) from Humboldt State University, a Master of Science degree in Environmental Engineering (1990) from Stanford University, and a Masters of Arts in Geography and Public Planning from Northern Arizona University (1998). Prior to developing ecological models in the Sisk lab for the past five years, she has worked in management at a major west coast utility planning electrical generation needs, in consulting at Science Applications International Corporation and in spatial database development at the U.S. Geological Survey. Her interests center around the use and application of spatial analysis in landscape ecology, environmental sciences and engineering. As ForestERA's project manager, Haydee's responsibilities include developing project plans, integrating and supervising the work of team members, guiding the development of data layers and spatial tools, making budget decisions, and leading the development of ForestERA's post-fire watershed models.

Tischa Muñoz-Erickson – Political Science Liaison

Tischa received a Bachelor of Science degree in Environmental Studies (1999) from Prescott College and a Master of Science degree in Environmental Science and Policy (2004) from Northern Arizona University. Her graduate research involved the development of an integrative assessment and monitoring tool to evaluate the ecological and social outcomes of collaborative management. Over the last seven years her research interests has been on sustainability science and collaborative processes in the U.S. and Latin America, including working as a teaching assistant for sustainable ecosystem management courses in Costa Rica. She currently serves as coordinator of the Integrated Monitoring for Sustainability (IMfoS) program of the Diablo Trust, a rangeland management collaborative group. Tischa has been involved in forest restoration issues since 2000, as an intern with the Greater Flagstaff Forest Partnership, and presently with the ForestERA Project as the political science liaison. Tischa's responsibilities include researching the political perspectives and issues around forest restoration in New Mexico, assisting in the development of social science methodologies, and coordinating the collection of social data with collaborators.

Jean Palumbo – Technical Writer / Editor

Jean received a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism in 1989 from Arizona State University. In 2004 she earned a Master of Arts degree in English, with a focus on rhetoric and technical writing, and a Graduate Certificate in Conservation Ecology, both from Northern Arizona University. Her past work includes fundraising for several different nonprofit organizations and marketing for a northern Arizona beverage company. Her interests lie in informing and engaging the general public in environmental issues through writing and outreach. Currently she contributes to and edits many of the publications produced by the ForestERA team.

John William Prather, the science lead on the ForestERA Project, died February 20, 2006, in Flagstaff, Arizona, from a hypertensive aneurysm. He was 36. John received his Bachelor of Arts (1991) and Master of Arts (1994) degrees in Environmental, Population, and Organismic Biology from the University of Colorado, and a Ph.D. in Zoology from the University of Arkansas. His research had focused on the ecology, behavior, and distribution of terrestrial vertebrates, with an emphasis on birds. He studied the ecology and behavior of congeneric warblers in Florida mangroves, effects of brood parasitism by cowbirds on avian hosts, ecophysiology of birds preparing for spring migration in Costa Rica, the use of caves by amphibians and bats in Arkansas, and the effects of recreation and forest management on avian communities. Through his research and classwork he had become experienced in a wide variety of vertebrate sampling techniques. John's research on the ForestERA Project focused on GIS-based wildlife habitat modeling, fire behavior modeling, and assessment of accuracy and uncertainty in GIS models.

Read more about John's life (In memoriam).

Donations in his memory may be made to the John W. Prather  Graduate Student Scholarship make check payable to NAU Foundation,  Account 5020, Box 4094, Flagstaff, AZ  86011, or online at Prather Scholarship Fund .  (Select "Other" as the donor designation, and enter "John W. Prather Memorial Fund" under "Other Designation".)

Jill Rundall – GIS Specialist

Jill received her Bachelor of Science in Zoology (1999) from Northern Arizona University and has completed coursework in spatial database development and administration, geographic information systems (GIS) and advanced spatial analysis. Her interests include the application of spatial analysis in ecological restoration, natural resource management and conservation. Jill's past work included mapping restoration treatments in pinon-juniper woodlands across the Four Corners region, developing a vegetation database for the Colorado River corridor, and leading field crews in arthropod monitoring associated with integrated long term resource monitoring along the Colorado river through Grand Canyon, AZ. Jill's responsibilities with ForestERA include assisting in the development of watershed and wildlife spatial models, conducting spatial analysis, developing enterprise spatial databases, selecting and purchasing remote sensing imagery, generating and collecting baseline data, designing maps and web pages, and providing information technology support. She is currently building an enterprise geodatabase that will support the collaborative work of ForestERA and extend their data delivery capabilities to the internet.

Tom Sisk – Principal Investigator

Tom Sisk is an ecologist with the Center for Environmental Sciences and Education at Northern Arizona University. He is a native of New Mexico and has spent most of his life in the Four Corners region. He directed an international program in tropical conservation biology for the Center for Conservation Biology at Stanford University, where he received his Ph.D. in 1992. He completed his undergraduate studies in biology at Colorado College in 1983. Before joining the NAU faculty in 1996, Tom served as the Special Assistant to the Director of the National Biological Service, U.S. Department of the Interior. Currently, he teaches courses in ecology, conservation biology, and environmental policy, and oversees a research group studying the effects of habitat fragmentation, livestock grazing, forest management, and long-term changes in land use and land cover. In 2001 he was named a fellow of the Aldo Leopold Leadership Program of the Ecological Society of America.

Yaguang Xu – Spatial Analyst / GIS Developer

Yaguang received his Ph.D in Geographical Information Systems (2001) from York University. He worked for many years on mineral resource prediction and environmental assessment using information technology. His research interests range from development of GIS and RS methods and software, to application of these techniques to geology, landscape ecology, environmental assessment, and natural resource management. Yaguang is the spatial analyst and GIS specialist on the ForestERA project, where his focus is on mapping structural attributes of the forest across the study area using TM, radar imagery, air photo, and ground data. He analyzes accuracy and uncertainty of GIS modeling, and develops GIS software to aid in decision-making.

Eytan Krasilovsky (Forest Guild) – Northern New Mexico Community Liaison

As the community liaison for the North-central New Mexico ForestERA project, Eytan assists in project planning, keeps the project partners in New Mexico informed about the progress, and relays important information about the partners to the ForestERA team. The Community Forestry Coordinator for the Santa Fe based Forest Guild, Eytan provides technical assistance for community forestry projects, and coordinates and implements multiparty ecological and socio-economic monitoring.
Eytan has a B.A in Anthropology from Rutgers College (1998), and a Masters in Environmental Studies (2005) from the University of Pennsylvania . For his graduate research, Eytan investigated conservation planning on non-Federal lands under the Endangered Species Act, with a focus on the bog turtle. Eytan has gained experience in fire ecology, land conservation, and environmental education while working for the National Park Service in the Southwest, the Brandywine Conservancy in southeastern Pennsylvania , and the Cottonwood Gulch Foundation in Thoreau , New Mexico .

Jesse Abrams (ERI) – Apache-Sitgreaves Community Liaison

Jesse is the community liaison for the Eastern Mogollon Plateau Adaptive Landscape Assessment (EMPALA). He meets with project stakeholders to assess their needs for tools to assist in restoration decision-making and for engagement in collaborative processes using these tools, and keeps them informed about the project as it progresses. Jesse has been a research specialist with the Ecological Restoration Institute at Northern Arizona University since December of 2004. He received his Bachelor of Arts in Environmental Studies from New College (Sarasota, FL) in 1998, and his Masters of Science in Forest Resources from Oregon State University in 2004. Past research has included analyzing federal policy for its effects on rural Oregon communities, examining the social and political dimensions of forest health policy, and conducting research on streamflow preferences of anglers in the Northwest. Jesse has experience working for the National Park Service, The Nature Conservancy, Missouri Department of Conservation, and Florida Department of Environmental Protection.