Janis Dickinson's Lab

Citizen Science Program Staff

The citizen science staff is a team of professionals whose various strengths in science, education, evaluation, administration, programming, technology, web design, and science communication allow for synergies that allow us to deliver an exciting array of citizen science projects at a continental scale.

Joe Alfonso , application developer  

Joe Alfonso has a M.S. in Computer Science from U.C. Davis and is responsible for overseeing the work of our web application development and design team in citizen science. He has been updating and revising the data entry systems for NestWatch and Celebrate Urban Birds, while paying attention to best practices, work flow, and overall architecture.

Robyn Bailey , Project Assistant, YardMap and NestWatch

Robyn Bailey joined the Lab of Ornithology as the project assistant for The YardMap Network in 2011 after completing a M.S. in Fisheries and Wildlife (Michigan State University, 2010). Robyn also began supporting NestWatch in May 2011. She formerly worked as a field technician for various conservation research projects led by Point Reyes Bird Observatory, the University of Minnesota, and Mississippi State University. She first started birding while working on her B.A. in Field Biology (Huntingdon College, 2007) in her home state of Alabama.

Dr. David Bonter, Project FeederWatch  

David Bonter (Ph.D., University of Vermont, 2003) is an ornithologist interested in bird migration and survival. He’s currently the assistant director of citizen science and project leader for Project FeederWatch in the Citizen Science program at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Project FeederWatch is a long-term study of the abundance and distribution of birds in winter throughout the United States and Canada. The program enlists thousands of bird watchers to count birds for scientific research. David is also the Director of Research at Braddock Bay Bird Observatory (BBBO) on the south shore of Lake Ontario near Rochester, New York and, in summer, teaches Ornithology at Shoals Marine Lab.

 

Dr. Rhiannon Crain , Project Leader, YardMap

Rhiannon earned has a B.S. in Evolutionary Biology from University of Arizona and in 2008 she earned a Ph.D. in informal science learning from UC Santa Cruz's Center for Informal Science Education. She became project leader of YardMap in January 2009 and has led the team through development of our first online habitat mapping project to promote and study the impacts of what are commonly tauted as sustainable environmental practices in backyards and parks.

Anne Marie Johnson, Project Assistant, FeederWatch

As a Project Assistant for Project FeederWatch, Anne Marie coordinates development of printed materials for project participants, helps maintain the project's web site, and provides participant support. Anne Marie began working with Project FeederWatch in 1999 after moving to Ithaca from western Massachusetts where she was a middle school counselor. She is an avid birder and is active in the local bird club, serving as editor for the club's newsletter.

Dr. Jason Martin , Project Leader, NestWatch

Jason Martin (Ph.D., University of Florida, 2009) joined the Citizen Science program at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology in 2011 as the project leader of the NestWatch and NestCams programs. With the help of thousands of volunteers from across North America, NestWatch collects information on the nesting biology of birds so that long-term and wide-spread trends in nesting chronology, productivity, and behavior can be monitored and studied. The NestCams program partners with volunteers around the country to provide an informative and enlightening view into the rarely seen world of nesting birds. Prior to joining the Citizen Science team, Jason was a wildlife biologist for the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

Chris Marx , GIS specialist and application developer

Chris earned a B.S. in Natural Resources at Cornell in 2006 and joined Citizen Science as an application developer after a brief stint as a GIS modeler and research assistant at the lab. Chris brings his GIS skills to Citizen Science and specializes in google interfaces for data collection as well as creation of google gadgets for specialized data entry and visualization needs. He has worked on Celebrate Urban Birds, NestWatch visualizations, and his tools have been used in other projects, including JayWatch, which focuses on the endangered Florida Scrub-Jay. His current work involves creating the new YardMap Network, a socially networked ecological mapping tool.

Susan Newman , Project Assistant, FeederWatch

Susan Newman joined the Cornell Lab as project assistant for Project Feederwatch in 2011 after earning a M.A. in Environmental Conservation Education at New York University. Susan worked previously as a biology educator at the American Museum of Natural History and as a naturalist at The Wild Center/Natural History Museum of the Adirondacks following her undergraduate work in science communication at Cornell. Susan's first love is herpetology, but she has been convinced that birds are cool as well!

Karen Purcell, Project Leader, Urban Bird Studies

Karen Purcell is Project Leader for Celebrate Urban Birds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.  Karen was raised in Chile, South America and has a background in biology and education. She was formerly a public school teacher in the Ithaca City School District and worked with teens in foster care. At the Lab she has concentrated much of her efforts in trying to engage and support under-served audiences in the sciences in the USA and Latin America.

Kevin Ripka , Web Designer, Citizen Science

Kevin joined our team in 2011 as lead (and currently only) web designer. Previously he has worked in advertizing, taught college courses on web design, and leveraged his love of birds and snails into a variety of web resources and smartphone apps (he is using his Birdcountr app, which collects data that can then be ported into eBird, in this photo). Since arriving, he created the design for YardMap.org and is in the process of redesigning all of our citizen science web sites.