Jeffrey D. Zappieri

Completed 1998

Jeff is a coastal ecologist with the NYS Coastal Management Program. He works with ecological restoration projects and the development of coastal natural resource management plans. Jeff's projects include saltmarsh restoration and riverine corridors.

Suzanne M. Hohn

Completed 1999

Suzanne has joined the Peace Corps in Malawi, Southeast Africa. She is a Parks and Wildlife Community Extension Officer who is working to improve the relationship between local communities and the parks. Her goals in this project are to increase community involvement with the national parks and help communities benefit from the parks.

Michael Messere

Completed 1999

Lori Quillen

Completed 2000

Lori is a recent graduate of the program and is now working for the Invasive Plant Council. She is also interested in the role that Chiropterans play in pollination and the decline of native pollinators within the US. Since embarking on her thesis writing, she has also become interested in the role that information exchange effects public awareness and policy formation.

Lori now works at the Institute for Ecosystem Studies as a public information specialist on the educational staff.

The photo is from a summer internship at a Chiropteran rehabilitation and education center in Mineral Wells, Texas (1998).

Catherine Pratt

Completed 2000

Krista Zantopp

Completed 2000

Krista's thesis examined the public policy history of the Albany Pine Bush Preserve. While working for an environmental consulting firm on Long Island, she monitored the habitats of threatened and endangered species such as the Piping Plover on Fire Island National Seashore and worked on a number of shoreline restoration projects.

Josh Drew

Completed 2000

Josh is working as a researcher at the Wildlife Conservation Society at the Bronx zoo. His work focuses on two conservation efforts 1) an ocean giants campaign working to save large pelagic fish and 2) a seascape conservation campaign, looking at large scale marine conservation using a suite of 'seascape' creatures.

Josh's thesis was based on an internship with the American Museum of Natural History at the Center for Biodiversity and Conservation. His thesis was about 'Marine Reserves as an Alternative Fisheries Management Technique for the Bahamas.

Karen Frolich

Completed 2000

Karen is a biodiversity specialist at the New York State Biodiversity Research Institute in Albany, NY. Her thesis research was on dragonflies and damselflies communities (Insecta: Odonata) in eastern New York State.

Abbe Miller

Completed 2001

Abbe graduated from the school of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Cornell University, with a B.S. in Animal Science. She also studied natural resources while at Cornell.

Abbe studied marine biology while abroad at James Cook University in Townsville, Queensland, Australia for six months. She is an advanced certified SCUBA diver, and spent time diving and snorkeling on the Great Barrier Reef and in the Cayman Islands.

Abbe's thesis focused on harmful algal blooms (HAB's) developing  policy directives to minimize the negative impacts of HAB's on human and biological systems.

Dan Tierney

Completed 2001

Dan  is a recent graduate and wrote his thesis on the effect of land use practices on the abundance and diversity of amphibians in the  Wilton Nature Preserve.  He is currently teaching at Colby College and farming with his wife Hanne in Maine.

Anna Hartwell

Completed 2001

Anna earned a B.S. in Environmental Science and Economics from Nazareth College and a B.S. in Biology from Oswego State University. 

Anna has worked with the Nature Conservancy of Georgia and Alabama through a Student Conservation Association internship. She has also worked for the Environmental Research Center at Oswego State University studying Volitilization of PCBs in the Southern Great Lakes Basin.

Anna is currently a PhD student in the EEB program at SUNY Albany.  She is working with the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) on a wetlands monitoring project.

Joyce Levy

Completed 2001

Elizabeth Campochiaro

Completed 2002

Dam Removal for Ecological Restoration and Anadromous Fish Passage: A National Overview and Formative New York State Policy

Brian Beachy

Completed 2002

Amielle DeWan

Completed 2002

Joanne Taylor

Completed 2003

Cris Winters

Completed 2003

Cris's thesis work involved a review of our current knowledge of the relationships between invasive plants and birds. Currently, Cris is the Invasive Plant Specialist for the New York State office of the Nature Conservancy. In the past, she worked in the field of wetlands science and has conducted field research and surveys in ornithology and botany. She is involved in bird conservation with the Delaware Working Group of Partner In Flight and was elected a Fellow of the Delmarva Ornithological Society.

Cris earned a B.A. in Biology from SUNY Potsdam and did graduate work in ecology at the University of Delaware. Cris is also working toward a certificate in Natural Science Illustration from the Institute for Ecosystem Studies and has had her work published in Blue Line, Delmarva Ornithologist and Coastlines.

Laura Audette

Complete 2004

Laura graduated from Cornell University in 1998 with a Natural Resources/Animal Science major and is in her second year in the Biodiversity program.  She has volunteered for the Americorps National Civilian community Corps all along the west coast.  She has also worked for the United States Forest Service as a Wildland Firefighter in Arizona and California.  Laura found here way back to Albany for her masters degree. Now Laura is in California where she works for an environmental consulting firm.

The Ecological Restoration of an Urban Stream Corridor Patroon Creek, Albany, NY

Crystal Jones

Completed 2004

Crystal graduated summa cum laude from Illinois State University in May of 2002 with a degree in Biological Sciences. Her thesis was a project that assess the quality of biodiversity education in New York State. She hopes to use the results to make recommendations on how to improve biodiversity education for students and teachers alike. She now works at an educational museum in the Chicago area.

Biodiversity Education in New York State: An Assessment of Current Curricula

Benjamin Dittbrenner

Completed 2004

Ben graduated from the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee in 2001 with degrees in Biology, Environmental Science and Conservation.  He has worked on a number of field projects ranging from wetland restoration to coal refuse phytoremediation.  After a year of traveling throughout Europe, Canada and the Intermountain West he found his way to Albany and finished up his M.S. here before moving to California where he now works for an environmental consulting firm.

Cori Drummond

Completed 2004

Cori is a graduate of Siena College, where she played basketball and earned a B.S. in Marketing/Management and a Certificate in Environmental Studies. Since then she has volunteered with the Albany Pine Bush Commission and the New York State Museum.

Rebecca Shirer

Competed 2004

Becky is a 2001 graduate from Penn State University with a B.S. in Biology and a minor in Statistics. Before coming to Albany she worked in central Pennsylvania monitoring streams for the Spring Creek Watershed Community, an experience which helped her appreciate the need to understand policy in conservation. Becky is enjoying her time in New York and loves exploring the many different regions nearby.

Before graduating Becky secured a job with the Nature Conservancy's Troy, New York Office.

Sean Madden

Completed 2004

Sean graduated from the University of Vermont in 1996 with a degree in Wildlife Biology. After dabbling in some research jobs and stints teaching in the public schools around his hometown of Marshfiled, Massachusetts, Sean moved out to New York and instantly fell in love with the Hudson Valley. Since then, he has focused on learning as much as possible about the Hudson Estuary as an educator and a naturalist for environmental organizations, including Riverkeeper and the Hudson River Sloop Clearwater. His experience in the biodiversity program is another tool Sean uses to excite people about the wonders of the natural world. After graduating Sean received a teaching appointment at Hudson Valley Community College, teaching General Zoology. He also became a local recording artist with some of his songs appearing on a CD called Decaffein8ed. Sean loves hiking, singing, song writing, mucking around the riverside, and sturgeon.

Landscape Patterns and Water Quality in a Rural Watershed Tenmile Creek, Rensselaerville, NY