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Dr. Maurie Kelly is the Director of Informatics at Penn State’s Institute for Energy and the Environment and an instructor of international business in the Department of Risk Management. She teaches courses in international business, sustainability, and complex negotiation. Her research includes big data, and crisis/resilience with a particular interest in flood disaster community response. In recent years, her interests focused on emerging technologies including 3D capabilities to support hazard mitigation and response and crisis leadership, in particular leadership at times of extreme natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina. Her research group manages several long-term projects including Pennsylvania Spatial Data Access (PASDA), the Pennsylvania Flood Risk Assessment Tool, the PA Mine Map Atlas, PennPilot, and the Penn State Data Commons.

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Dr. Jennifer Bigman is an Assistant Professor at the University of Delaware. Prior to joining the faculty at UD, Jenny worked at NOAA Fisheries in Alaska and at the national level on quantitative fisheries science. Jenny is interested in understanding how climate change and environmental variability affects fisheries, fishes, and their ecosystems, with the goal of addressing real-world challenges such as sustainable fisheries. To do so, Jenny combines macroecology theory with data science and quantitative modeling to answer applied questions and test ecological theory.  In addition to work on fisheries, Jenny is broadly interested in using data and models to answer questions across systems and taxa.

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I am an associate professor of Biological Sciences at Binghamton University. My research program at BU focuses on understanding the interaction between evolutionary and ecological processes in both the origin and maintenance of biodiversity. My research group integrates lab-based approaches like genomics and physiology with field-based studies of natural populations to address questions about how adaptation to new ecological opportunities drives the formation of new species and the factors that promote or constrain ecological and evolutionary responses to a changing world. I came to Binghamton in 2016 after postdoctoral positions in the Entomology and Nematology Department of the University of Florida and the University of Toronto’s Koffler Scientific Reserve. I completed my PhD in 2012 from the University of Notre Dame, where along with my dissertation work on the evolution, ecology, and genetics of  host plant specialization in insects, I was also heavily involved in research on invasive species and the development of eDNA techniques . While an undergrad at Shepherd University, I started my research career in a conservation genetics lab at the USGS Aquatic Ecology Branch in Leetown. WV. While I have experience in both aquatic and terrestrial vertebrate systems, the majority of the current research in my is focused on insects, including fruit crop pests, parasitoids, gall-formers, and ants.

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Lindsey Swierk is a behavioral ecologist and Assistant Professor at Binghamton University (SUNY), where she studies how reptiles and amphibians communicate, reproduce, and adapt to their environments. Her work combines field studies and experimental approaches to understand how animals respond to ecological and evolutionary pressures. She also serves as Associate Director of Research at the Amazon Conservatory for Tropical Studies.

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Lorie Staver is an ecologist with a focus on plant nutrient interactions, and has worked extensively in restoration efforts for submersed aquatic vegetation and tidal marshes in the Chesapeake Bay, including the Poplar Island habitat restoration project. She has ongoing collaborations with scientists across a broad range of disciplines, and works regularly with resource managers. Her research is largely field-based, including monitoring and experimental work, with the goal of providing guidance for restoration of resilient habitats and management. In addition to marsh and SAV resoration, she has botanical expertise and conducts rare plant surveys.

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Ann M. Gallagher is a Science Education Coordinator for the National Park Service (NPS). In addition, she serves as a governor-appointed Commissioner for the Maryland Commission on Parks and Recreation. Other recent experience includes being temporarily embedded in the NPS Climate Change Response Program, chairing the DOI Women’s Mentoring Program, and as a representative to the DOI Nature-based Solutions Working Group. She has almost 20 years of experience as the instructor of record teaching undergraduate earth science and biology courses. Gallagher holds a Master of Science degree from the University of Maryland and is earning a PhD in Public Administration and Policy at Old Dominion University’s Strome College of Business School of Public Service exploring the role of management in the promotion of innovative solutions for land managers in response to a changing climate. This work led to her invitation to co-author National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2024. Developing a Strategy to Evaluate the National Climate Assessment. Washington, DC: The 51 National Academies. Her accepted publications for 2025 are Frye, E.A., Copenheaver, C.A., Gallagher, A., Wiseman, E. 2025. Scientific definitions and measurements of second-growth, mature, and old-growth forests. Journal of Forestry and Gallagher, A. 2025. Identifying Organizational Resiliency Indicators; Can Employees’ Impression of Senior Management Predict Resiliency for Environmental Restoration Nonprofits? Proceedings of the International Academy of Business & Public Administration Disciplines. Her areas of expertise include organizational and program management and evaluation, outreach and engagement, watershed and forest ecology, policy drafting and implementation, program management, and science communication. Gallagher holds a Graduate Certificate in Environmental Policy from the University of Massachusetts, is an ESA certified Senior Ecologist, an ISA Certified Arborist, and a PMI Program Management Professional

Biographical Sketch

I am an assistant professor in the Environmental Studies Program at Binghamton University in New York. My research interests are focused on interactions between plant ecology and biogeochemistry in ecosystems responding to global change. In my prior position as a USDA NIFA postdoctoral fellow my research focused on merging ecological theory around community succession, species interactions, and ecosystem resistance to extreme drought at Cedar Creek Ecosystem Science Reserve. Additionally, during my previous research at the Pastures and Climate Extremes facility affiliated with the Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment focused on improved grasslands, or pastures, and a range of plant responses to extreme climate events including drought and warming in eastern Australia. Ongoing projects include detailed analyses of shifts in pasture phenology using PhenoCams, and shifts in plant-plant interactions such as competition and facilitation under drought or warming conditions. Previously in graduate school my PhD focused on plant responses and controls on nitrogen availability for alpine areas receiving nitrogen deposition as a consequence of anthropogenic sources.

Biographical Sketch

I currently work as a project specialist in urban ecology for the University of the District of Columbia (UDC). Current projects include surveying the health of oak trees throughout DC and determining potential reasons for their decline in health in the Mid-Atlantic region, getting Tree Campus certification for UDC and doing an inventory of all the trees on campus with the help of volunteers, and running the Master Naturalist program for DC. I also teach general ecology. Previously, I did post-docs at the University of Delaware doing a literature review to make wetland management recommendations for the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources and at Pennsylvania State University researching white-tailed deer genetic structure. My PhD research at Bowling Green State University involved researching how bats are affected by habitat variables, especially those related to human land use. Between my Master's and PhD degrees, I worked at the Bureau of Land Management in Barstow, California doing habitat restoration work in desert tortoise habitat. My Master's research at Frostburg State University involved researching the distribution of Appalachian cottontails in Western Maryland.

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I am a geophysicist whose research mainly focuses on the geophysical characterization of near-surface processes through a wide range of methods, such as electrical resistivity, induced polarization and electromagnetics. I am particularly interested in:

• Prediction of soil behavior under dynamic forces (e.g., flooding, earthquake and heavy rain) by using novel methods for this purpose (e.g., complex resistivity and 3D induced polarization imaging). In this research, Saneiyan aims to develop an early-warning system installed in-situ for monitoring unstable soils prone to landslides and shear failure.
• Designing geophysical monitoring instruments for permanent site characterizations by installing instruments capable of real-time data processing and reporting. One example is using electrical resistivity imaging in critical zones as a permanent monitoring tool to investigate the subsurface water transport in the long term. With recent advancements in computer programming (e.g., project ResIPy) and computational instruments, real-time geophysical monitoring will become the new frontier in subsurface monitoring.
• Basic science research (laboratory/pilot study) for understanding microscopic properties of soils/rocks using advanced geophysical techniques (e.g., spectral-induced polarization). This will help in improving our unde