Conservation Science

Fellow Story

Whale Trust

Whale Trust, co-founded by Switzer Fellow Meagan Jones, supports research on whales and their marine environment. The organization is committed to bridging that research with public outreach, education and conservation.
March 11, 2011
Fellow Story

Conducting Science that Leads to Environmental Improvement

1988 Switzer Fellow Dr. Mark Schlautman is a professor at Clemson University in the Department of Environmental Engineering and Earth Sciences. A project in which Mark played a key role over a number of years recently made headlines in California. The Brake Pad Partnership, led by San Francisco-based Sustainable Conservation, led the effort to pass legislation reducing the use of copper in brake pads in California.
December 20, 2010
Fellow Story

Setting an Ocean Agenda in the Halls of Power

Switzer Fellow Denny Takahashi-Kelso, Executive Vice President of Ocean Conservancy, the oldest U.S. based ocean conservation organization focusing on the long-range sustainability, productivity and biodiversity of the ocean, explains why this is a pivotal moment for the ocean and the human communities that depend on the ocean.
December 1, 2010
Fellow Story

Lead Poisoning of Albatross Chicks

Lead-based paint enjoyed widespread use up until 1978. In her effort to save a species, Switzer fellow Myra Finkelstein uses the latest scientific tools to pinpoint crumbling paint as the source of painful diseases, crippling wing mutations, and early death in albatross chicks.
July 14, 2010
Leadership Grant Grant

Evaluating Potential of Conservation Lands in Rural Downeast Maine, Year 2

This grant provides a second year of funding for Misha Mytar’s position as Senior Planner in Maine’s Department of Conservation, Bureau of Parks and Lands. Misha’s work focuses on enhancing the economic and community development potential...
June 18, 2010
Leadership Grant Grant

Strategic Plan for Managing Invasive Species in California

Under this Leadership Grant, Doug Johnson, Executive Director of the California Invasive Plant Council (Cal-IPC), will spend a portion of his time acting as Chair of the California Invasive Species Advisory Committee. The Committee is the...
June 18, 2010
Leadership Grant Grant

Building Capacity at Whale Trust, Year 1

Whale Trust received this Leadership Grant to hire Meagan Jones as its first full-time Executive Director. Meagan was one of the founders of the organization in 2001 and has been involved with the organization from the start. This year, she...
June 18, 2010
Fellow

Melissa Garren

2010 Fellow
Holding a Ph.D. in Marine Biology from Scripps Institution of Oceanography, with a completed postdoctoral fellowship in Civil and Environmental Engineering at MIT, and >20 years of experience underwater as a PADI certified scuba Divemaster...
Fellow

Karrigan Bork

2010 Fellow
Karrigan Bork completed a law degree at Stanford Law School in Spring 2009 and an Ecology PhD in the Genomic Variation Laboratory at UC Davis in 2011. Originally from Lawrence, Kansas, he graduated from the University of Kansas in 2002 and...
Fellow Story

California Invasive Plant Council

When is a pretty plant a problem? When it displaces native vegetation and disrupts the food chain. Doug Johnson, Executive Director of the California Invasive Plant Council, is a Switzer Fellow working with private and government agencies to identify invading plants, arrest their spread and educate the public to healthy alternatives.
June 17, 2010