INR - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Faculty Research Assistant, OSU Portland Office
Job Titles:
- Species and Forests Database Specialist
Andrew works on projects involving the managing of species occurrence information and the creation of forestry sales databases for the U.S. Forest Service. Prior to coming to INR, Andrew served as an AmeriCorps member leading a monitoring program for riparian restoration and as a research assistant for the Kansas Geological Survey.
Ayn has over 30 years of experience integrating ecological processes and multi-landowner values into scientifically-based resource management decisions. Working for the US Forest Service, The Nature Conservancy, and the Bureau of Land Management, she variously led the modeling of reference conditions for the LANDFIRE project, completed a multilateral global scientific assessment of fire regime conditions, trained staff in the use of state-and-transition models for National Forest Plan revisions, and led a high-level interdisciplinary team to plan dry forest restoration across over one million acres in the Blue Mountains of eastern Oregon and Washington. As Research Associate for INR, Ayn contributes to a greater understanding of how natural disturbances and land management alternatives are likely to affect vegetation and related resources
Job Titles:
- Assistant to the Directors
Job Titles:
- Science Policy Research Analyst
Job Titles:
- Rangeland Monitoring Manager, Ecologist
Caitlin is an ecologist and botanist who currently works primarily in the sagebrush steppe on rangeland monitoring projects. She manages the Terrestrial Assessment, Inventory, and Monitoring (AIM) crews for INR, who sample plots across Bureau of Land Management (BLM) lands in Oregon, Washington, Northern California, and Northern Nevada. She has been with INR since 2016, when she started as a crew lead on an AIM crew, and has been involved with the program ever since, including leading crews, instructing at AIM Core Methods Trainings, and working with data management and summarization. Caitlin's previous work has included forest understory surveys, prairie restoration, and climate change research in Alaskan bogs. Caitlin has a master's degree in Botany from Oregon State University where she studied ecological restoration in upland prairie ecosystems. Her thesis tested ways to increase the success of reintroductions of the endangered plant species golden paintbrush.
Job Titles:
- Botany Program Manager and Seed Bank Director
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Board
- Senior Associate Vice President for Research and Innovation, University of Oregon
Job Titles:
- Species and Forests Database Specialist
David is based in Bandon, Oregon. Since 1997, he has worked with the Oregon Biodiversity Information Center (ORBIC) on monitoring of the Western Snowy Plover, a small shorebird that lives and breeds on the west coast of the US from Washington to Baja California, and also breeds at inland locations in the Great Basin. David is part of the Western Snowy Plover Working Team, has been involved in several other projects that have impacts on plovers including the New Carissa removal project, the proposed Liquefied Natural Gas plant in Coos Bay, the proposed container facility in Coos Bay, and the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department's Habitat Conservation Plan for the Snowy Plover.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Board
- President, Newton Consultants, Inc.
Job Titles:
- Rangeland Science and Technology Transfer Specialist - OSU, INR - Corvallis
Born and raised in Bradenton, FL Dylan grew up shuffling his feet through highways of sting rays in the Gulf of Mexico before spending most of his formative years near the Adirondack Mountains of New York. In 2012, he earned a B.S. in biology at Ithaca College with a focus on animal behavior. He then spent a decade exploring conservation opportunities around the country for organizations like The Nature Conservancy, Bureau of Land Management, and Great Basin Institute before obtaining an MS in Plant Biology with the Field Naturalist Program at the University of Vermont in 2023. For his applied masters project, Dylan worked with The Nature Conservancy and Oregon Desert Land Trust to provide an upland vegetation assessment for a 500,000-acre working cattle ranch near the Trout Creek Mountains in Harney County, OR. Whether he's tracking snowshoe hares in the Poconos, monitoring the sage grouse populations of California, or even watching that small, spinning loading graphic of GIS software at work, Dylan falls in love with every opportunity to use his passion as a naturalist to solve environmental problems. He likes to take his friends sailing, observe the Krumholtz by ski, and has a marked propensity for embracing the path of most resistance.
Job Titles:
- Director, Oregon Biodiversity Information Center at Portland State University
- ORBIC PSU Director
Eleanor is the Director and Zoologist for the Oregon Biodiversity Information Center at Portland State University. She collaborates with state, federal and private partners to gather and share information on the distribution and status of Oregon's biodiversity. She currently coordinates a multi-agency project to monitor Western Snowy Plovers along the Oregon coast. Recent projects have included developing wildlife distribution maps for ODFW's Comprehensive Wildlife Plan and regional Gap Analysis assessments. She also works with USFWS and Oregon Division of State Lands to coordinate invertebrate section 6 funding.
Job Titles:
- Ecological Modeling Team Lead
Emilie's research interests include modeling broad-scale patterns in plant communities, as they relate to environmental gradients, and disturbance history. These research interests apply practically to building species distribution models, predictive vegetation maps, and also state-and-transition simulation modeling studies. The maps and the simulation modeling results are targeted to provide useful information to natural resources and conservation planning. Before coming to INR, Emilie was a postdoctoral researcher with the Landscape Ecology, Modeling, Mapping and Analysis team in OSU's Department of Forest Ecosystems and Society.
Eric uses satellite imagery and other geographic data to map vegetation communities, model distributions of plant and animal species, and detect change across Oregon and the national parks of Washington state. Before assuming the position in front of a computer, he spent a few years doing itinerant botany and ecology fieldwork in many parts of North America.
Job Titles:
- Faculty Research Assistant, OSU Portland Offic
Job Titles:
- Lotic AIM Project Manager
Charles is a landscape ecologist with an interest in forest and fire management, with a particular research emphasis on the provision of ecosystem services from forested landscapes. His focus at INR is using forest landscape models to aid in forest management and planning. Recent projects he has participated in have included modelling support (using LANDIS-II) and analysis for the Lake Tahoe West Restoration Partnership and the Pyregence project. His skillset also includes spatial analyses in R and QGIS, and further information on his research and publications can be found on ResearchGate.
Job Titles:
- Program Manager
- Botany Program Manager and Seed Bank Director
Gabriel Campbell is the Botany Program Manager responsible for the management of botanical conservation programs at the Institute for Natural Resources - Portland (INR-PDX) and the Rae Selling Berry Seed Bank. Gabriel has been working with plants for over a decade across the Southeastern US, Great Plains, and the Pacific Northwest. He has an interest in seeds, native plant restoration, and horticulture. Gabriel has developed cultivation and restoration planting protocols for dozens of native plant species, and has worked as a field botanist, grower, and native plant landscaper. When not botanizing, Gabriel likes to frequent used bookstores to look for additions to his library of plant books.
Job Titles:
- Director, Oregon Biodiversity Information Center at Portland State University
Job Titles:
- Director, Institute for Natural Resources
Job Titles:
- Principal
- Economist
- ILAP Principal Forest Economist
Gary Lettman is the Principal Forest Economist for ongoing INR studies tracking and projecting land use change in Oregon and Washington. From 1990-2011 he was the Principal Forest Economist for the Oregon Department of Forestry. From 2011-2015 he published studies and book chapters comparing land use policies and laws in Washington and Oregon and the resulting differences in land use changes between the states from the mid-1970s through 2009.
Gary's current research interests include: 1) Updating the Oregon and Washington land use studies, 2) Projecting land use change for both states, and 3) researching the implications of land use and land use change on water quality, wildland fire, and other resource lands issues of interest to policy makers.
Job Titles:
- Research Analyst, Ecologist
Job Titles:
- Ecological Modeling Team Lead
Job Titles:
- Landscape Modeling Specialist
Jack is an undergraduate student at Portland State University pursuing an Environmental Science Degree. He has interests in restoration and forest ecology. After graduating, he wants to get involved with habitat restoration or any sort of field work.
Job Titles:
- Botanist and Invasive Species Specialist
- Specialist
Jacob Rose (he/him) is a botanist and invasives specialist working with Institute for Natural Resources - Portland (INR-PSU), PSU's Center for Lakes & Reservoirs, and the Rae Selling Berry Seed Bank. In addition to field work related to invasive and rare species, Jacob administers the Oregon iMapInvasives Program and Oregon Invasive Species Hotline.
When not at work, Jacob is puttering in his vegetable or native plant gardens, catching up on soapy Spanish dramas, or learning about the geography of far-flung places.
Job Titles:
- Oregon Explorer Lead
- Oregon Explorer Program Lead
Before coming to INR, Janine was OSU Library's Program Director for the Oregon Explorer natural resources digital library. She has also worked for the Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board, California Department of Fish and Game, California Resources Agency, CalFIRE, and NASA Ames Research Center to promote information sharing and collaborative approaches to conservation and resource management at local, state, and regional scales. Locally, she serves on the Benton County Natural Areas and Parks Advisory Board.
Job Titles:
- Director, Institute for Water and Watersheds
Job Titles:
- Science Policy Research Analyst
Job Titles:
- Consultant
- Director of OSU Staff at INR - Portland
Jimmy Kagan is the director of OSU staff at INR-Portland. Jimmy was the Director of the Oregon Biodiversity Information Center (previously called the Oregon Natural Heritage Information Center) from 1986 to 2020 where he oversaw botanical and ecologic inventories for Oregon. Jimmy also worked for The Nature Conservancy for several years as the staff ecologist and botanist. His research interests include biodiversity planning and management.
Job Titles:
- Assistant to the Directors
Julie is Assistant to the Directors of the Institute for Natural Resources and the Institute for Water & Watersheds. She manages the business office for both institutes as well as the Student Intern Program for IWW. Julie works in all facets of the programs, research proposals, research projects, and workshops and training sessions.
Before joining the INR in 2005, Julie worked in the College of Oceanic & Atmospheric Sciences, and prior to that, she served as Program Coordinator for the Aldo Leopold Leadership Program through the OSU Zoology Department.
Kathy is based in Bandon, Oregon. Since 1997, she has worked with the Oregon Biodiversity Information Center (ORBIC) on monitoring of the Western Snowy Plover, a small shorebird that lives and breeds on the west coast of the US from Washington to Baja California, and also breeds at inland locations in the Great Basin.
Kyla began working with INR in 2014 as a GIS Analyst, but now spends much of her time mucking about in wetlands. She is concerned about the fate of Oregon's wetlands given intensifying drought and development pressures, and she is passionate about bolstering awareness, appreciation and information about the diversity of wetland types across the state and their ecological functioning. Prior to joining INR, Kyla worked with the Montana Natural Heritage Program to produce data for the National Wetland Inventory and conduct ecological integrity assessments of groundwater dependent ecosystems. Her PhD project also intersects with wet places: Kyla's research examines the resilience of forested wetlands under changing fire and climate regimes in Chilean Patagonia. In the uplands, Kyla is often found watching birds, practicing tai chi or learning about herbalism.
Job Titles:
- Faculty Research Assistant, Snowy Plover Researcher
Job Titles:
- Rangeland Monitoring Manager, Ecologist
Job Titles:
- Snowy Plover Monitor, Zoology Data Assistant
Job Titles:
- Research Analyst, Ecologist
Leila is an ecologist and spatial analyst with INR's Forest Program and Ecological Modeling Team. Her current projects focus on mapping plant communities along broad environmental gradients by linking satellite imagery to on-the-ground plot data, and then using Forest Vegetation Simulator (FVS) and statistical tools in ArcGIS and R to summarize management-relevant indicators. Her past research has looked at carbon dynamics in forested coastal wetlands and the impacts of land-use change on global emissions. Leila has worked on landscape carbon assessment projects in Brazil, the Dominican Republic, and the United States. She completed her graduate work in the Kauffman Laboratory at Oregon State University (OSU), where she led field data collection and laboratory analysis for the Pacific Northwest Blue Carbon Project, a multi-year collaborative research effort quantifying carbon stocks in coastal regions of Western US. As a two-year Coastal Climate Resiliency Fellow with Counterpart International, Leila also worked with the Dominican Department of Natural Resources and partners to lead the implementation of a nationwide mangrove carbon inventory in the Dominican Republic. From 2018-2020, she served on the scientific advisory panel for the Blue Forests Project, a Global Environment Facility-funded project to advance coastal watershed conservation in developing nations. Leila has taught classes in conservation at OSU, and leads workshops as a mentoring scientist for the Dominican Environmental Education Program (DEEP). Further information on Leila's research and publications can be found on ResearchGate.
Job Titles:
- ILAP Principal Forest Economist
Job Titles:
- Oregon Biodiversity Data Manager
Lindsey works on a variety of projects with INR and the Oregon Biodiversity Information Center, including managing data on rare species occurrences and status, supporting staff with data and report writing needs, and responding to data requests from agency partners, private companies, contractors, and the public. She started as an AmeriCorps volunteer with INR in 2007 and previously worked as a field botanist for the National Park Service at Mount Rainier.
Job Titles:
- Director
- Director, Institute for Natural Resources
Lisa has more than 20 years of experience working with universities, government agencies, and NGOs to develop and manage multi-institutional natural resource and international development projects and programs. Within INR she leads multi-institutional research and science review teams, facilitates planning and policy dialogues, develops and implements policy research, leads multi-institutional proposal development teams.
As Director, Lisa is committed to INR's faculty and institutional integrity. She will work with the INR faculty to build partnerships with researchers, government agencies, non-governmental organizations, the private sector, and other stakeholders in Oregon and the Pacific Northwest to integrate science and policy to reframe and address the natural resource and environmental challenges we face.
Her areas of interest and experience include the human dimensions of environmental risk, environmental policy and decision-making, citizen participation, evaluation, and international transboundary waters.
Job Titles:
- Project Coordinator
- Faculty Research Assistant / Institute for Water and Watersheds
Job Titles:
- Conservation Biology Team Lead
Marie is an ecologist interested in the physiology, movement, and spatial ecology of free-ranging animals, with a particular focus on species of conservation concern. Her thesis research, entitled Exploring the energetic and spatial ecology of Pacific martens in Lassen National Forest, CA, was focused on implementing novel approaches to quantify the effects of landscape heterogeneity and scale on movement patterns, space use, and energetics of Pacific martens. Currently, she works for the Institute for Natural Resources in Portland, OR where she studies the ecology of mammalian communities and their responses to changes in land-use, climate, and wildfire regimes in the western United States.
Job Titles:
- Conservation Biology Team Lead
Job Titles:
- Lotic AIM Project Manager
At INR, Matthew is project manager for the Lotic Assessment, Inventory, and Monitoring Program in partnership with the Bureau of Land Management. Matthew is responsible for managing and coordinating field visits to wadeable streams and rivers throughout the Western states. Matthew's interests revolve around aquatic ecology, population ecology, and global fisheries. He plans to pursue a Masters degree in the future in these subjects.
Job Titles:
- Conservation Ecology Lead, Wildlife Ecologist
Job Titles:
- Rangeland Monitoring Manager, Plant Ecologist
Michael is a plant ecologist managing, with assistance from Caitlin Lawrence, the INR Cooperative Agreement with the BLM to sample vegetation across the range of the Greater Sage-Grouse in eastern Oregon. The program uses BLM AIM sampling protocols to assess the status and eventually trends of rangeland and Sage-Grouse habitat. Michael has 20 years of experience as a professional botanist in the Pacific Northwest. His dissertation focused on the landscape ecology of beneficial insects in western Oregon farmlands, and he studied the germination of native Willamette Valley prairie plants for his master's research. He also serves as the President of the Biodiversity Research Collaborative in Eugene, focusing on Pacific Northwest lichens.
Job Titles:
- Faculty Research Assistant
Neal works as a Research Assistant on a variety of projects, focusing primarily on conducting Assessment, Inventory and Monitoring (AIM) sampling for rangelands, and as a team lead managing AIM research crews in the field. Since graduating from Portland State University, Neal's work has included ecological restoration, vegetation survey work, remote sensing & spatial analysis, and invasive species management and monitoring. Neal's other passions lie in the outdoors, where he has worked as a Program Director, Wilderness Guide, and Outdoor Educator in the outdoor industry.
Job Titles:
- Rangeland Science and Technology Transfer Specialist - OSU, INR - Corvallis
Job Titles:
- Faculty Research Assistant
Job Titles:
- Botanist and Invasive Species Specialist
Job Titles:
- Rangeland Monitoring Manager, Plant Ecologist
Job Titles:
- Oregon Explorer Program Lead
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Board
- Habitat Division Administrator, Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife
Job Titles:
- Conservation Ecology Lead
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Board
- Associate Dean, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Portland State University
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Board
- Dean, College of Forestry
Job Titles:
- Oregon Biodiversity Data Manager