Biologists at Cascadia Research


John Calambokidis is a Research Biologist and co-founder of Cascadia Research (in 1979). He has served as the Principal Investigator of more than 40 research studies on marine mammals, marine birds, and pollution. He has supervised a staff of up to 20 researchers. He recent projects include: coordinating a project to estimate the abundance of humpback whales in the entire North Pacific Ocean using photo-identification data, examining movements and estimating the abundance of blue whales in the North Pacific, studying residency patterns of gray whales in Washington waters, examining habitat preferences and abundance of harbor porpoise and evaluating trends in contaminant levels of harbor seals. His duties include writing research proposals, overseeing projects, conducting field research, analyzing data, and publishing research results of projects funded by government and private grants and contracts. He has co-authored over 30 papers in scientific journals and two books: the award-winning Guide to Marine Mammals of Greater Puget Sound (Island Publishers, with R. Osborne and E.M. Dorsey) and Blue Whales (Voyageur Press, with G.H. Steiger). He is a charter member of the Society for Marine Mammalogy, as well as a number of other scientific societies, and periodically teaches a Marine Mammal Biology course as an Adjunct Faculty Member of The Evergreen State College in Olympia.   John can be reached by e-mail at Calambokidis (at) CascadiaResearch.org

 

Gretchen Steiger has been a Research Biologist at Cascadia Research since 1983. She has conducted research on a number of species in many regions from the Arctic to Central America. She currently works primarily as a writer and editor of scientific research proposals, reports and manuscripts. Recent projects include tracking reproductive rates of humpback whales using long-term photo-identification data and examining movements and population structure of humpback and blue whales in the North Pacific. She has co-authored results of her work in scientific articles and wrote the book Blue Whales (Voyageur Press, with J. Calambokidis). She is president of the Board of  Directors of Cascadia Research and is a charter member of the Society for Marine Mammalogy. She earned her Bachelor of Science degree from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.   Gretchen can be reached by e-mail at GSteiger (at) CascadiaResearch.org

 

Kristin Rasmussen has been a researcher with Cascadia Research since 1994. Her research has focused on humpback whales, with an emphasis on their wintering distribution along Central America where she has studied this species since 1996. She initiated a research effort on use of Central America as a wintering area for Southern Hemisphere humpback whales. She was Chief Scientist on a cruise in winter 1999 through Central American waters for humpback and blue whales. She has served as a marine mammal observer for SWFSC. She received her Masters of Science degree at Moss Landing Marine Laboratories in 2006, with her thesis focusing on humpback whales off the Pacific coast of Central America. Kristin can be reached by e-mail at Krill (at) aol.com

 

Lisa Schlender serves as both researcher and office manager of Cascadia Research, where she has worked since 1995. Her current duties include overseeing and managing photo-identification data of humpback, blue and gray whales; this includes processing, matching, data management and supervision of student interns.  Lisa can be reached by e-mail at LSchlender (at) cascadiaresearch.org

 

Todd Chandler has been conducting research with Cascadia since 1990. His focus has been on field studies of marine mammals off California, Oregon, Washington. He supervises aerial surveys for population analyses and behavioral studies and conducts boat surveys for large cetaceans, including humpback and blue whales. He is the owner of a 50-foot sailing vessel, Russamee, which has been involved in several Cascadia Research expeditions, including a study of blue whales off the Costa Rican Dome in the winter of 1999.  Todd is currently based in North Carolina, and can be reached by e-mail at sailrussamee (at) gmail.com

 

Annie Douglas has worked and collected data for Cascadia Research since 1997.   She has helped in the ongoing collection of blue, humpback and gray whale photo-identification from the Eastern Tropical Pacific to Kodiak, AK. She is also part of the stranding response team in Washington State, has worked on a number of USGS marine mammal mitigation projects, CalCOFI surveys, and some of the Hawaii odontocete research projects. Annie can be reached by e-mail at abdouglas (at) cascadiaresearch.org

 

Robin Baird is a Research Biologist with Cascadia Research, joining in 2003. For many years his research focused on marine mammals in British Columbia. His current research focuses on: 1) biology and behavior of killer whales; 2) cetacean diving (sub-surface) behavior; and 3) population assessment of Hawaiian odontocetes. Current projects include studies of diving behavior and food habits of killer whales in Washington state, and beaked whales and pilot whales in Hawaii. He has authored or co-authored 52 peer-reviewed publications, as well as a number of non-peer reviewed publications and reports, including the book Killer Whales of the World (Voyageur Press). He obtained his Ph.D. in Biology from Simon Fraser University in 1994, and was a Post-doctoral Fellow at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada.  For more information on his research see his web page. Robin can be reached by email at rwbaird (at) cascadiaresearch.org

 

Erin Falcone has been with Cascadia since July 2003.  She began studying the social behavior and population dynamics of humpback whales in the Revillagigedo Archipelago, Mexico in 1995 while attending Humboldt State University in Arcata, CA.  Erin works as the data manager for the SPLASH North Pacific humpback whale study, as well conducting small-boat surveys for a variety of other projects at Cascadia.  Erin can be reached by e-mail at efalcone (at) cascadiaresearch.org

 

Greg Falxa has been working off and on with Cascadia Research since its inception. He is a master electronics and radio technician and assisted with technical aspects of many Cascadia projects. His current research is focused on bat population surveys and studies of bat colonies in the Pacific Northwest using radio tracking, ultrasonic call analysis, and RADAR technologies. Some of the results of his bat work can be found at capitollake.com or email him at gregf (at) efn.org

Greg Schorr has been working with Cascadia Research since 2004, involved in projects with killer whales in Washington state, blue, fin and humpback whales along the outer coasts of California, Oregon and Washington, and beaked whales and other species in Hawai'i. Greg can be reached at gschorr (at) cascadiaresearch.org

Jessie Huggins is our stranding coordinator and has been with Cascadia since 2004. She takes the lead on coordinating and conducting Cascadia's responses to stranded marine mammals throughout Washington State and has been involved with field work and other various components of our long-term photo-ID projects. Jessie can be reached at jhuggins (at) cascadiaresearch.org


 

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