Keynote Speakers, brought to you by:

Maryland ornithological society
Maryland Biodiversity project

Mike Parr, President, American Bird Conservancy
Mike joined American Bird Conservancy in 1996 after graduating from the University of East Anglia, UK, and working for BirdLife International. He has co-authored seven books including: Parrots - A Guide to the Parrots of the World, Important Bird Areas in the United States, and The American Bird Conservancy Guide to Bird Conservation, along with numerous articles and papers. He is Chair of the Alliance for Zero Extinction and a member of the Board of Directors of the Sustainable Forestry Initiative.

Autumn-Lynn Harrison, Migratory Connectivity Project, Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center
Dr. Harrison is a research ecologist with the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center and the program manager of the Migratory Connectivity Project, through which she collaborates with many amazing migratory bird researchers throughout the Americas. Her work focuses on the migrations of marine and coastal animals and applying scientific research to policy questions related to transboundary conservation and management. She has led field projects to deploy electronic tracking devices on seabirds and shorebirds breeding in the Alaskan Arctic, Brown Pelicans in the Chesapeake Bay, and seals and sea lions in South Africa and California. Dr. Harrison has contributed to United Nations efforts to identify ecologically significant areas for migratory marine animals in international waters of the North Pacific Ocean and to create a new international treaty for the ocean. Harrison earned B.S. Degrees in Environmental Science and Fisheries and Wildlife Science from Virginia Tech, a Graduate Diploma of Science in Tropical Marine Ecology and Fisheries Science from James Cook University in Townsville, Australia, and a Ph.D. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from the University of California, Santa Cruz. Prior to joining the Migratory Bird Center in 2014, Harrison worked for the Society for Conservation Biology for 11 years. She grew up on the Eastern Shore, where her family has lived since the 1600s and her first job in this field was as a seasonal naturalist at Pocomoke River State Forest and Park.

SPEAKERS

Kevin Bennett, PhD Candidate, University of Maryland, College Park
Kevin is a PhD Candidate at the University of Maryland, College Park and currently doing his dissertation research at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History. He studies sexual selection and plumage color evolution in manakins, after having previously studied bird migration timing at Colby College for his Bachelor's and abundance patterns of free-ranging domestic cats at Fordham University for his Master's. Though he now studies evolution for a living, Kevin has been lucky enough to work on several exciting conservation projects, including Whooping Crane breeding in the US and tagging endangered marsupials in Western Australia. He is a birder in his (sparse, graduate student) free time. 

Nina Black, Student, Washington College
Nina Black is a senior at Washington College majoring in Biology with a concentration in Ecology and Evolution from Chestertown, MD. She has interned at Washington College’s River and Field Campus for summer and fall seasons doing both field sparrow nest searching and learning to bird band. She recently returned from a year abroad in the Netherlands where she conducted acoustic research on European bird species with Dr. Hans Slabbekoorn.

Kimberly Golden Brandt, Director of Smart Growth Maryland
Kimberly leads Preservation Maryland’s smart growth education and advocacy efforts, which support preservation of forests and open space and revitalization of Maryland’s cities and towns.
She advises officials and advocates working to advance sustainable growth in their communities and provides technical analysis of local planning efforts. She led a successful smart growth campaign in Charles County that serves as a model for on-going campaigns in Anne Arundel, Howard, and Frederick Counties.
Kimberly has a graduate degree in urban and regional planning and has worked as a professional planner for twenty years. Her work experience includes local land use planning and natural hazard mitigation planning for the State of Maryland, where she served as the state’s Hazard Mitigation Officer. More recently, she served as the Local Policy Director at 1000 Friends of Maryland, a smart growth advocacy organization that merged with Preservation Maryland in 2018.

Andy Brown, Calvert County Natural Resources Division
Andy Brown is the Senior Naturalist with Calvert County Natural Resources Division. He received a B.S. in Wildlife Biology from Frostburg State University. He has been working with Barn Owls in Southern Maryland since 1994.

Emily Cohen, University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, Appalachian Laboratory
Research in Dr. Cohen’s laboratory broadly aims to understand animal migration biology in the context of the full annual cycle. We live in a rapidly changing world where many species are declining, and this is especially true for migratory species. It is possible that changes in habitat, climate, and resource availability due to unprecedented human activity are inflating the costs associated with animal migration. At the same time, advancing technologies and analytical tools are making it possible to solve many of the important mysteries about migratory animals.

Donna Cole, Multimedia reporter at WNAV Radio
Donna L. Cole is an Associated Press and Society of Professional Journalists award-winning journalist. She's a multimedia reporter for WNAV Radio in Annapolis, where she hosts the 1430 Connection, a weekly radio show. The professional work Donna is most proud of came in the summer of 2018, when she broke news about carbofuran (a federally banned pesticide) killing Bald Eagles - the story received global coverage. It raised awareness of the dangers of pesticide use and wildlife poisonings and led to change in the state of Maryland pesticide licensing procedures. For this work, Donna received the Society of Professional Journalists DC Pro Chapter 2019 Dateline Award for Investigative Journalism and the Chesapeake Associated Press Broadcasters Association Outstanding Enterprise Journalism award. Her work on this story has continued into 2020 and it was recently announced a bill to make the possession of carbofuran illegal will be introduced in the current Maryland Legislative Session.

Gabriel Foley, Coordinator for the Maryland & DC Breeding Bird Atlas 3
Gabriel Foley is an avid birder from the prairies of Saskatchewan, Canada. For his graduate work there, he researched nighthawk habitat use in Canada’s boreal forest. Gabriel has also published research on acoustic analysis and interactions between bats and nighthawks around the Washington Monument in D.C. Over the past decade, he has worked on research projects in Canada, the US, and South Africa, and was the host of a weekly nature radio show, The Prairie Naturalist. Now, he is excited to be the Coordinator for the Maryland & DC Breeding Bird Atlas 3. You can connect with him on social media at @birdnirdfoley.

Daniel Irons, YMOS
An avid birder and avian wood carver, Daniel Irons is 17 and is a native to Maryland’s Eastern Shore. He’s been an active member of the Youth Maryland Ornithological Society for 10 years and competes annually in the World Series of Birding [*see note below]. Daniel also volunteers at the Foreman’s Branch Bird Observatory; a banding station on Chino Farms, and has worked as a migration counter for the Cape May Bird Observatory. This past year, he spent the summer and fall working with Richard Crossley in Cape May, NJ. Specializing in birding by ear, Daniel has a strong interest in visible migration including morning flight, seawatching, and nocturnal flight call counts. He is also passionate about finding rarities and late, out of season migrants in little-known and under-birded locations.

Jonathan Irons, YMOS
Jonathan Irons is an avid birder and wildlife photographer.  Jonathan is 15 years old and resides on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. He has been an active member of the Youth Maryland Ornithological Society for 8 years and competes annually in the World Series of Birding. Jonathan has been a volunteer for the past 4 years at the Banding station at Foreman’s Branch Bird Observatory at Chino Farms.  Jonathan has attended many Youth Birding camps throughout the U.S. including Camp Chiricahua, Hog Island, Camp Colorado.  Jonathan is also a 5-time world champion youth wildfowl carver.

[*Webmaster’s note: Every YMOS team entered in the 2019 World Series of Birding won their division. The YMOS Marsh Gigglers (grades 9-12) had 207 species, 2 more than the Category 1 “overall” winning team from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology!]

Greg Kearns, Naturalist, Patuxent River Park
Greg Kearns, a MNCPPC naturalist for over 35 years at Patuxent River Park in Upper Marlboro Md., is an accomplished photographer, expert birder, and a renowned authority on the Sora Rail (Porzana carolina) and wetland ecology at Jug Bay. He was named conservationist of the year by the Md. Dept. of Natural Resources in 2006 for this work and for restoration of the wild rice marshes on the river, which has been recognized as one of the best wetland restorations in MD. He also received the Jug Bay Award for significant contributions to the environment on the Patuxent and recently was awarded the 2017 National Wetlands Restoration and Conservation award from the Environmental Law Institute In Washington, DC.

Madelaina Ondo, Student, Washington College
Madelaina is a senior at Washington College studying environmental science with an interest in wildlife conservation and monitoring. Over the summer she interned at Washington College’s River and Field Campus, monitoring nesting success of Field Sparrows. During the 2019 fall semester, Madelaina interned at the Foreman’s Branch Bird Observatory where she learned to identify common bird species and extract them from mist nets. Aside from her interest in birds, Madelaina enjoys spending time outside and hanging out with the animals on her family’s farm.

Sandy Spencer, Refuge Wildlife Biologist, Patuxent Research Refuge, USFWS
Sandy has been a Refuge Wildlife Biologist, at the Patuxent Research Refuge since 2011. Prior to coming to Patuxent she was refuge biologist at Rappahannock River Valley NWR from 2000-2010.   She graduated from the College of William and Mary, and received a graduate degree at George Mason University in 2000. Her research was on the last Marsh Wren population of the Potomac River/Dyke Marsh. 

Andy Wilson, Gettysburg College
Andy has been an avid birder since childhood. In his native UK he was an Ecologist at the British Trust for Ornithology for 10 years before moving to PA for grad school in 2004...just in time for the start of 2nd Pennsylvania Breeding Bird Atlas (2nd PBBA) fieldwork. After six years as a 2nd PBBA point count technician, Andy took a lead on analyzing the wealth of atlas data, and, along with Dan Brauning and Bob Mulvihill, edited the atlas book (published 2012). Andy is an Associate Professor of Environmental Studies at Gettysburg College, PA.