Graduate student Researchers

Sarah Antonelli  (santonelli@bren.ucsb.edu)
Sarah graduated from Boston College in 2014 with a B.S. in Environmental Geoscience. She has worked as an environmental justice (EJ) intern with the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection and conducted her senior thesis on EJ. At Bren, she is specializing in Economics and Politics of the Environment with a focus in Strategic Environmental Communications and Media. In Spring 2015, Sarah implemented a food waste recovery pilot project as an intern with Santa Barbara's Community Environmental Council. She plans to work in urban agriculture and food security.
Kristen Boysen   (kboysen@bren.ucsb.edu)
Kristen graduated from Pomona College with a degree in Environmental Biology, and then spent several field seasons working on seabird and shorebird research projects. She then joined Sierra Foothill Conservancy, a regional land trust in the Central Sierra, first as an AmeriCorps volunteer and then full-time as their Conservation Project Manager. Here, Kristen wrote several successful grants for restoration and land acquisition projects, worked closely with ranchers and other stakeholders, and organized outreach events. Kristen is specializing in Conservation Planning and is excited about the many diverse aspects of this wolf project.
Charlie Piechowski  (cpiechowski@bren.ucsb.edu)
Charlie graduated from Loyola Marymount University in 2011 with a B.S. in Environmental Science. He then surveyed coastal salt marsh systems with the Santa Monica Bay Restoration Foundation (SMBRF). He served as a biological monitor during the Malibu Lagoon Restoration and Enhancement Project and as LMU's Lab manager. Charlie also taught courses in Biology and Green Engineering at Loyola High School. He is pursuing a specialization in Conservation Planning with a focus in Eco-Entrepreneurship.
Michael Smith  (msmith@bren.ucsb.edu)
Mike Smith is from Woodstock, NY and graduated from the University of Delaware in 2011 with a Bachelors in Biology. After graduating, he worked for a molecular biotechnology lab and for a contractor to the Department of Defense before coming out to California. He is specializing in Conservation Planning at Bren and hopes to do similar work as this wolf project in a future career.
Geoff Willard  (gwillard@bren.ucsb.edu)
Geoff studied American and European History at the University of Rochester. He worked for two years with cattle ranchers in the Bay Area, leading creek restoration and erosion control projects on their land. He then spent four years designing educational programs about evolutionary biology and biodiversity protection for the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco. He has also served as Treasurer of the Board of Directors for RE-volv, as a Fellow with the Coro Center for Civic Leadership, and as a guide with Streets of San Francisco Bike Tours.  At Bren, Geoff is studying Conservation Planning and working as a writing tutor.

Advisers

Ben Halpern (halpern@bren.ucsb.edu)
PhD, Ecology, Evolution, and Marine Biology, UC Santa Barbara

Ben focuses his research at the interface of marine ecology and conservation planning. His research has addressed a broad range of questions that span local to global scales, including spatial population dynamics, trophic interactions in community ecology, and the interface between ecology and human dynamics, all with the ultimate aim of informing and facilitating conservation and resource management efforts in marine systems. After receiving his PhD in 2003, he held a joint post-doctoral fellowship at the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS) and the Smith Fellowship Program sponsored by The Nature Conservancy. He was a research associate at NCEAS until 2013 and then appointed professor at the Bren School and part-time chair in marine conservation at Imperial College in London. He also serves as director of the Center for Marine Assessment and Planning (CMAP) at UCSB.

Dr. Halpern has led the development and mapping of cumulative impact assessments at global and regional scales in marine and freshwater systems and has been the lead scientist for the Ocean Health Index project. He has also conducted field expeditions in tropical and temperate systems in the Caribbean, Red Sea, Mediterranean, Solomon Islands, Indonesia, various parts of the South Pacific, California, and Chile. 
Ian McCullough (imccullough@bren.ucsb.edu)
Ian McCullough is a PhD candidate at the Bren School, advised by Frank Davis. Ian's research interests include biogeography, climate change and conservation. His dissertation research focuses on the effects of climate change on the health and distribution of California's mountain forests. Ian is originally from the East Coast and enjoys running, hiking, sports and humor.

Client Adviser

Pamela Flick (pflick@defenders.org)
Pamela Flick is California Representative for Defenders of Wildlife. She works on a wide variety of issues, including federal land management with an emphasis on Sierra Nevada national forests, and advancing conservation of carnivores, birds and amphibians. Pam currently serves on the Pacific Wolf Coalition steering committee and was a member of the Wolf Stakeholder Working Group convened by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife to help shape a plan for conserving and managing wolves as they recolonize their historical habitat in the Golden State. She is based in Sacramento.
The following people provided invaluable guidance throughout the project: Charlotte Weaver, Matt Barnes, Dr. Frank Casey,  Dr. Stewart Breck, Dr. Frank Davis, Dr. Steven Courtney, Bre Owens, Tiffany Russell, Casey Hankey, Amy Burgard and Satie Airame.