About Arizona Conservation Science

Rob joined The Nature Conservancy in 1997 to lead bi-national conservation planning efforts for the Sonoran Desert and Apache Highlands ecoregions. As Science Director, Rob spearheaded partnerships with the U.S. Forest Service, Department of Defense, Bureau of Land Management, AZ Game & Fish Dept., AZ Dept. of Transportation, and other public and private partners to develop studies that address ecological management of our lands and waters. These collaborative efforts resulted in new regional assessments with contemporary information on the status of grasslands, forests, freshwater systems, and endangered species. As a member of Pima County’s Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan Steering Committee, Rob developed the habitat protection priorities for Pima County’s 2004 bond initiative where voters approved $174 million for conservation acquisitions. As Director of the Conservancy’s new Center for Science & Public Policy, Rob is now studying the relationship among urban growth, future water supplies, and climate change, and continues to focus on bringing the right minds and collaborators together to ensure science helps inform important public policy issues that impact people and nature.

Rob was trained as an avian ecologist. Prior to joining TNC he was an endangered species biologist for the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and a research scientist for the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology and U.S. Forest Service’s Rocky Mountain Experiment Station. Rob currently serves as a member of Pima County’s Conservation Acquisition Commission assisting the County in the implementation of the Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan.

Edward began working with The Nature Conservancy first as a seasonal naturalist at Hart Prairie Preserve, and then as a forest and fire ecologist and conservation planner. He now works primarily on forest management policy across all land ownerships, advocating for the appropriate return of fire as a natural ecological process. He is also working on the Southwest Forest Assessment Project, providing high quality information on the historic range of variability of several forested, woodland, and grassland communities for use by the US Forest Service.

Dale leads planning efforts for the Arizona chapter of The Nature Conservancy, working on site, watershed, and ecoregional efforts to guide and prioritize conservation action. Current and recent efforts include whole-river planning exercises for the San Pedro and Verde rivers, and a multi-agency management plan for the Aravaipa Canyon area.

Trained as a herpetologist, Dale has studied dune-dwelling lizards and plants, and conducted herpetological inventories in protected areas around southern Arizona. He also worked for the National Park Service, studying saguaros in Saguaro National Park and helping direct a biological inventory program for 11 National Park Service units.

Jeanmarie serves as the state hydrologist, providing technical assistance to Conservancy programs throughout the state. Jeanmarie works with a wide range of collaborators to develop the science to support environmental flows – the provision of water in sufficient quantities to support ecosystems and the services they deliver to humans. With a team of academic researchers, she is currently focused on documenting streamflow-ecology relationships in the Verde River watershed.

Prior to joining the Conservancy in 2001, Jeanmarie spent 15 years working as a hydrologist conducting water resource investigations in Arizona, Mexico, and Chile, including 9 years with a groundwater consulting firm and 4 years with the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality. Jeanmarie is an Arizona native who has logged many hours on foot and in boat covering the back-country trails and rivers of the southwest.

Gita’s focus with The Conservancy is on helping land managers identify and fill their biological information needs and tie this information back into decision making. A major part of this work has been partnering with the Bureau of Land Management to design more informative and efficient ecological monitoring for the Las Cienegas National Conservation Area near Tucson, AZ.

Gita got her start as an Ecologist as a child in the woods of northern New Mexico. She has been active in conservation of the Sky Island-Apache Highlands region since 1993, doing teaching, outreach, policy, and science work with several schools and non-profits. Her Ph.D. research on biodiversity and systematics of tropical jumping spiders indulged her love of the little things that run the planet and taught her to make the most of limited data about an unlimited world.

Marcos comes to TNC after a six-year stint at NatureServe, where he lead an ambitious project to harmonize the conservation priorities and common interests of a number of federal, state, and private entities in the Southeastern United States. Marcos obtained his Masters degree in Ecology from Colorado State University and did his thesis work on grasslands in Wyoming.

Dan manages GIS and information resources for Arizona’s Conservation Science program, conducts spatial analyses, and designed and maintains the azconservation.org website. Dan comes to TNC from Northern Arizona University, where he worked with Dr. Paul Beier developing CorridorDesigner, a set of GIS tools for designing and evaluating wildlife corridors. Dan also worked with Dr. Beier to complete wildlife connectivity analyses for 8 regions in Arizona as part of a project funded by the Arizona Game & Fish Department. Prior to moving to Arizona, Dan studied GIS and statistical methods for modeling the distribution of Costa Rican birds for his Master’s thesis at Purdue University.

Sarah is a member of our Southwest Forest Assessment Project team, where she helps evaluate forest change under alternative climate change and management scenarios. Her background is in avian ecology and for her graduate degree, Sarah investigated the effects of forest fuel reduction treatments on avian communities and breeding ecology of western bluebirds. Prior to joining the Conservancy Sarah worked for the Arizona Game and Fish Department, Northern Arizona University, and the Forest Service on several research issues, including endangered native fish populations, pronghorn movement on Anderson Mesa, and forest treatment effects on avian and small mammal populations.

Ron works on our adaptive management and monitoring project with the BLM at Las Cienegas National Conservation Area in southeastern Arizona. Ron came to the Conservancy from a Tucson-based environmental consulting firm where he monitored riparian enhancement projects as a senior scientist. He has studied riparian grasslands in southeastern Arizona, investigated the role of native plants in abating air pollution in the Owens Valley during his post doc at UC Davis, and investigated the fate of treated wastewater in vegetation and soils along the Santa Cruz River in southern Arizona. Prior to entering graduate school Ron was a restoration project manager for The Nature Conservancy in California’s Kern River Valley.