SFBBO Staff
Chris Overington, is the executive director at SFBBO. Originally from England, Chris studied for his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Biology and Environmental Sciences at King’s College, in the University of London. He later relocated to the United States, where he first worked on the East Coast developing and teaching residential Environmental Education programs. He then continued west and found a home at Hidden Villa in the Los Altos Hills, where he has been responsible for a variety of roles over the last 25-plus years, including Executive Director for the past 14 years. He is an avid birder and spends much of his free time birding the baylands of Santa Clara County and is an active eBird compiler!
Contact: [email protected]
Contact: [email protected]
Eric Lynch (he/him) is a science director at SFBBO who specializes in habitat restoration. Eric‘s family moved to San Jose from Salem, MA in 1997. He received his B.A. in English and American Literature at Harvard University in 2009. Eric then returned to the San Francisco Bay and worked a desk job for four years. He spent most of his free time exploring the outdoor spaces around the San Francisco Bay, California coastal ranges, the Sierras, and eventually the southwestern deserts before deciding to pursue a career where he could work outside and improve the condition of the natural resources he loves. Eric returned to school to get an A.S. degree from West Valley College’s Park Management Program and take biology classes while working seasonal jobs with local, state, and federal land managers, and became an ecologist at SFBBO. In 2018, Eric left SFBBO to pursue a master’s degree at Sonoma State focused on raptor migration phenology at the Golden Gate Raptor Observatory, where he is a longtime volunteer. Now that his degree is almost complete, Eric has returned to his beloved South Bay to continue working to improve the relationship between humans and the environment through conservation, restoration, research, and outreach.
Contact: [email protected]
Contact: [email protected]
Katie LaBarbera, Ph.D., (they/them or she/her) is a science director at SFBBO who specializes in landbird research and conservation. One of their primary responsibilities at SFBBO is managing the long-running bird banding program at Coyote Creek Field Station. After developing a fondness for urban birds growing up in Chicago, Katie fell in love with ornithology at Cornell University while studying the adventurous love lives of house wrens. They received a Ph.D. in Integrative Biology at UC Berkeley, studying life history variation in dark-eyed juncos in the Sierra Nevada mountains. They subsequently taught at UC Berkeley, then detoured to beautiful Minnesota to study tree frog communication. Katie has volunteered as a math tutor at San Quentin Prison and as a wildlife hospital volunteer at the Lindsay Wildlife Experience. They are interested in animal behavior, conservation, and everything birdy.
Contact: [email protected]
Contact: [email protected]
Nathan Van Schmidt, Ph.D., is a science director at SFBBO who specializes in regional strategies. After getting a B.S. in Zoology at University of Wisconsin-Madison, he moved out to California to pursue a Ph.D. in Environmental Science, Policy, and Management. His dissertation focused on understanding how human-created wetlands allowed rails to persist through California’s droughts. He has held a variety of other positions at the U.S. Geological Survey, U.C. Santa Cruz, and the International Crane Foundation, where he has researched cranes, sage-grouse, and water sustainability and policy. Nathan has lived in the Bay Area for over a decade and is excited to be working at SFBBO and finally studying the landscape he lives in. His interdisciplinary research approach focuses on understanding how waterbirds, their habitats, and human decision-making around those precious natural resources co-evolve over time. He combines field research with simulation models that forecast those changes into the future, with the aim of identifying effective long-term conservation strategies that can allow birds to adapt to the pressures posed by ongoing climate change and development.
Contact: [email protected]
Contact: [email protected]
Maddy Schwarz is a science director at SFBBO who specializes in plover and tern research and conservation. She graduated from UC Davis in 2017 with a Bachelor’s in Wildlife, Fish, and Conservation Biology. Maddy began working with SFBBO in 2018 on the plover team, then began volunteering at our Coyote Creek Field Station. Maddy has worked for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Geological Survey, and multiple environmental consulting companies in the Bay Area. When she is not in the field, she spends her time reading, rock climbing, singing, and taking care of her many house plants and snake.
Contact: [email protected]
Contact: [email protected]
Josh Scullen is Director of IT and also works as a senior biologist at SFBBO. Josh has a B.S. in Wildlife Management from West Virginia University and is a North American Banding Council Certified Trainer. Originally from Maryland, Josh has spent several years conducting field work throughout North and Central America and Hawaii, and has lived on the California coast since 2006. Josh was a former Science Director specializing in landbirds and served as our IT specialist. He now conducts research with the landbird, waterbird and plover teams.
Contact: [email protected]
Contact: [email protected]
Kristin Butler, M.S., (she/her) is the communications and marketing director at SFBBO. She has a B.A. in Political Science from Whitman College and an M.S. in Mass Communications from San Jose State University with a concentration in print journalism. Her master’s thesis focused on the application and use of the Internet as a communications tool. After college and during graduate school, Kristin interned as a writer for California State Assemblywoman Delaine Eastin’s office and taught at the California School for the Blind and Sylvan Learning Center. Since then, Kristin has managed and directed communications programs for several conservation and youth serving organizations, including the East Bay Regional Park District, Girls Inc., and Earthjustice. She was also a reporter for her hometown daily newspaper, The Argus. She covered every beat, including the environment, and wrote about endangered species, habitat loss, wetlands regulation, and other Bay Area issues. In addition, her work has appeared in Bay Area BusinessWoman News, Tideline, All Bird Bulletin, and Birdwatching Magazine, and on national blogs including SciStarter, P.L.O.S. CitizenSci, and Discover’s Citizen Science Salon.
Contact: [email protected]
Contact: [email protected]
Z Gerber (she/her) is the finance director at SFBBO and is a Bay Area resident of 30 years. She has a background in Wildlife Rehabilitation, with a special focus on raptors and raptor rehab, and is a lifelong conservationist, bird enthusiast, gardener, and avid hiker.
Contact: zgerber@sfbbo.org
Contact: zgerber@sfbbo.org
Cole Jower, M.S., Cole Wan Jower, M.S., (he/him) is a senior ecologist at SFBBO who specializes in tidal marsh habitat restoration and research. Cole holds a B.S. degree in Wildlife Conservation from Humboldt State University and an M.S. degree in Biology from San Jose State University where he examined patterns of habitat use by breeding Rhinoceros Auklets on southeast Farallon Island. In addition to playing an important leadership role in the habitats program, Cole has worked in our waterbird and plover and tern programs, and also serves on the SFBBO IDEA committee.
Contact: [email protected]
Contact: [email protected]
Kaili Hovind (she/her) is a habitats lead ecologist and nursery manager at SFBBO. She received a B.A. in Environmental Studies with a minor in Environmental Restoration from San José State University in 2019. A few months before graduation she began working at SFBBO as a habitats intern, completing her senior capstone project in partnership with the Habitats team by studying the effects of soil type in the germination success and growth of two native Californian plant species.
Contact: [email protected]
Contact: [email protected]
Fen Conway (they/them) is a lead biologist at SFBBO. After receiving a B.S. in Conservation and Resource Studies from UC Berkeley in 2020, they shifted their focus to birds and pursued fieldwork throughout California and Washington. Working with a number of government and non-profit organizations, they conducted point count, spotted owl and goshawk surveys, and banded passerines and saw-whet owls from the alpine backcountry to the Pacific coast. They love working with the dedicated volunteers at CCFS to monitor bird populations in the Bay Area, and spreading awareness about avian conservation. In their free time, they love backpacking, reading, rock climbing, jamming with friends on the cello, and of course, birding.
Contact: [email protected]
Contact: [email protected]
Amy Parsons, M.S., is a lead biologist at SFBBO. She completed an M.S. in Biology at San Jose State University, where she studied the microbiome of California gulls in the SF bay area and Mono Lake. Previously, she worked as a field biologist for USGS, monitoring the nests of American avocets, Black-necked stilts, and Forster’s terns in the SF Bay. She is excited to, once again, be working to study and conserve waterbirds in and around her community. In a previous life, Amy completed a B.A. in Linguistics and an M.A. in Education and thereafter spent many meaningful years as a teacher in international schools in the U.S., Europe, and Asia. She hopes to spend many of her future years contributing to the understanding and conservation of the planet’s rich biodiversity.
Contact: [email protected]
Contact: [email protected]
Hop Le is an ecologist at SFBBO. He studied Environmental Studies with a focus on Natural Resources Management at San Francisco State University. His interest in the field was sparked by environmental justice movements on campus, which led him to study and focus on conservation as a career. When you meet him, be sure to ask Hop about his time with the San Jose Conservation Corp, where he worked with Keep Coyote Creek Beautiful and led volunteer creek cleanups, habitat restoration days, and bioblitz events!
Contact: [email protected]
Contact: [email protected]
Jeremy Reinhard (he/him) is a lead biologist at SFBBO. He studied biology at Sacramento City College before transferring to UC Berkeley, where he completed a B.S. in Molecular Environmental Biology in 2020 with a concentration in Biodiversity. He has previously worked with the California Department of Public Health in helping track the spread of West Nile Virus in birds throughout the state. He started with SFBBO as a Snowy Plover Intern in 2022. In addition to birding, Jeremy has an avid interest in studying the resident plants and fungi of the Bay.
Contact: [email protected]
Contact: [email protected]
Jesse Wentworth (she/her) is a biologist at SFBBO. A born-and-bred Wisconsinite, Jesse earned her M.A. in British and American literature at Marquette University before moving to California and working in content marketing and publicity for a variety of Bay Area organizations. In 2018 she said goodbye to marketing and started working toward her B.S. in Fisheries, Wildlife, and Conservation Sciences through Oregon State University. Before joining the SFBBO team, she was involved with harbor seal surveys and education at the Fitzgerald Marine Reserve, Hawaiian Gallinule research at the Kauai National Wildlife Refuge, wildlife rehabilitation at the Peninsula Humane Society/SPCA, and animal care at CuriOdyssey in San Mateo. When she’s not busy staring at birds, Jesse is likely watching horror movies, hiking, reading, or playing nerdy board games.
Contact: [email protected]
Contact: [email protected]
Emily Chan (she/her) is a technician with SFBBO. She graduated from UC Santa Cruz with a B.S. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. During her undergraduate work, she developed her passion for birds and conservation through field research she conducted in classes and bird banding done at a university reserve. She combined these two skills through her work as an Avian Malaria Project Technician with East Hawaii Wildlife. Now she hopes to continue utilizing her skills at her position with SFBBO. In her free time she enjoys playing games with friends, singing karaoke, and birding.
Contact: [email protected]
Contact: [email protected]
Isabella Nunez-Garro is a Seasonal Restoration Ecologist for SFBBO. She is a first-generation Mexican-American college student at San Jose State University pursuing a degree in Biology with a concentration in Ecology and Evolution. Her goal is to work in wildlife conservation and rehabilitation, specifically in the field. At SFBBO she is assisting with the Habitats and Colonial Waterbird nest monitoring program and is conducting an independent research project to study Black-crowned Night Heron colonies in Oakland, identifying the nesting conditions of these birds to help land managers safely relocate herons from downtown to Lake Merritt.
Contact: [email protected]
Contact: [email protected]
Mandy Frazer, M.S., (she/ they) is a seasonal restoration ecologist in the habitats program at SFBBO. She has a B.S. in Biology, with minors in Chemistry and Mathematics, as well as an M.S. in Biology from UC San Diego. Mandy is an entomologist by trade, with undergraduate and graduate research experience in invasive insect ecology. Her master’s thesis work investigated the invasion limitations of the invasive big-headed ant, Pheidole megacephala, in urbanized ecosystems of coastal Southern California. Her undergraduate work examined the prevalence and ecological impacts of the invasive Argentine ant, Linepithema humile, in San Diego salt marshes. She also has experience as a volunteer consultant and field technician for Nature Collective, where she contributed to project design, survey methods, and data collection for bee and spider surveys in marshland and lagoon sites. She is also a volunteer at the California Academy of Sciences and helps out with processing samples for insect projects in their Center for Comparative Genomics program. Mandy is excited to build on her experience in wetland ecology through restoration work in tidal marshes with SFBBO. She has goals to pursue a Ph.D. in the near future, and hopes to do research that combines her interests in both marshland ecology and invasive insects.
Contact: [email protected]
Contact: [email protected]
Isabella Munoz Garcia is a seasonal restoration ecologist at SFBBO. She graduated from San Jose State University with a B.A in Environmental Studies and a minor in Environmental Justice. Her goal is to work in wildlife conservation or outdoor environmental education. Isabella enjoys spending her free time hiking and stopping for plants along the way.
Contact: [email protected]
Contact: [email protected]
Daniel Solorzano-Jones is a biologist at SFBBO. Originally from Colima, Mexico, Daniel grew up in Washington state and later graduated from the University of Washington with a B.S. in Environmental Science and a minor in Quantitative Science. Daniel has previously worked roles as an ecologist and wildlife technician from remote Alaska to the neighboring Golden Gate National Recreation Area. These positions have allowed him to develop experience with a wide variety of wildlife and ecological areas of interest including shorebird migration, riparian restoration and wildlife management in both urban and remote landscapes. At SFBBO, he is excited to learn from the multidisciplinary staff and contribute to long-term waterbird monitoring projects that inform land management in the South Bay. In his spare time, he enjoys birding, photography, soccer, biking, backpacking and collaborating with friends on passion projects.
Contact: [email protected]
Contact: [email protected]
Ren Chen (she/her) is a biologist at SFBBO. She attended UC Davis, which is where her love for birds took off. Her interest in bird conservation began after her time in wildlife rehabilitation and nest box fieldwork. After completing a B.S. in Wildlife, Fish, and Conservation Biology in 2022, she continued fieldwork in California working with private, federal, and non-profit organizations. Being from San Francisco, Ren is excited to now work, experience, and connect others with songbird migration close to home.
Contact: [email protected]
Contact: [email protected]