Theresa grew up splashing in the Great Lakes and received a B.S. in Fisheries and Wildlife from Michigan State University. Aside from a year in environmental education, Theresa has studied zooplankton, box turtles, plovers, and spotted owls. She fell in love with Hawaiʻi’s aloha spirit and native wildlife in 2015 and made the move to Kauaʻi to work with the Underline Monitoring Project in early 2017.
Adam joined KESRP in 2015 to address a growing need for custom-built conservation and research equipment. His self-taught proficiency in electrical and mechanical engineering combined with a talent for problem solving make him a valuable addition to the team. When inventing new tools for wildlife applications, Adam draws from nearly 10 years of field research and conservation experience. His current projects include developing a laser avoidance system to prevent endangered seabirds from colliding with power lines, an acoustic reference device that calibrates detectability of power line strike events, and PIT tag readers that monitor seabird burrow activity.
Hannah Moon
Underline Monitoring Project, Field Assistant
Hannah received her B.F.A. from the Seattle University in 2010, and went on to study marine ecology at U.W.’s Friday Harbor Labs. She fell in love with seabirds while conducting sea-watches in the North Atlantic. Her lifelong love of birds has taken her around the world to work on a variety of avian projects. These include the conservation of native parrots in Costa Rica and the Caribbean. Recently, she assisted with shorebird management on the east coast of the United States. Her diverse background ranges from native plant propagation and predator control, to avian point counts across North America.
Riley Neil
Underline Monitoring Project, Field Assistant
Riley received his B.S. in outdoor conservation from Mount Mercy University in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He’s worked various field jobs from trail crews in southern Alaska to studying fairy wrens in Queensland, Australia. Riley started his Hawaiian adventure by doing point counts for endangered forest birds on the Big Island of Hawaiʻi. After the excitement of working with Hawaiʻi’s forest birds, he came to Kauaʻi and worked for UMP in 2016, and has come back for the 2018 season.
Stephanie LeQuier
Underline Monitoring Project, Field Assistant
Stephanie received her B.A. in Zoology from the University of Vermont in 2015. Her love of avian field work began soon after graduating when she worked as a field tech doing nest searching in the bottomland hardwood forests of Arkansas. Since then she has monitored the endangered black capped vireo on Fort Hood Military Base in Texas and volunteered in Australia to study the behavioral ecology of red-backed fairy-wrens. Looking to do more work in wildlife conservation, she applied for the Underline Monitoring Project in 2018. She is really looking forward to taking a more active role in avian conservation.
Angela Stemen
Underline Monitoring Project, Field Crew Leader
Angela grew up exploring the beautiful state of California. After graduating with a B.A. in International Studies she participated in an Outward Bound course in Costa Rica that changed her focus from studying cultures to exploring the outdoors. She spent a couple of years guiding backpacking and kayak tours in Northern CA where she found her true passion for studying wildlife, especially birds. Since then she has worked conducting avian point counts all over the West, as well as raptor and Greater Sage-Grouse monitoring in Wyoming and Montana. Her enthusiasm for travel and wildlife has given her the opportunity to experience the amazing place that is Kauaʻi where she has worked three seasons with the Underline Monitoring Project and continues to aide and learn more about seabird conservation.
Demetri Lafkas
Underline Monitoring Project, Field Assistant
Demetri earned his B.S. in Biology with an Ecology emphasis from Northern Michigan University, located in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Also from the U.P., he was introduced to nature and wildlife at a young age. A love for travel, birds, and adventure has brought him throughout the U.S. and now to Kauaʻi. A majority of the work has been with endangered species including piping plovers in the Great Lakes, snowy plovers and least terns in Southern California, and golden-cheeked warblers in the Texas hill country. Other work includes statewide breeding bird atlasing and the effects of turbines on bats and birds both pre and post construction. Passionate about avian conservation, he is looking forward to being able to contribute and be a part of the Underline Monitoring Project.
Reina Galvan
Underline Monitoring Project, Field Assistant
Reina was raised in Montrose, CO, where her love for the outdoors flourished. Reina’s interest in conservation started in high school where she worked with the Western Colorado Conservation Corps and National Park Service. Ever since high school Reina has worked on different field technician projects that have allowed her to work with a variety of species. Even though Reina has worked with mammals, plants, invertebrates, and fish, birds have definitely won her heart. She received her B.S. in Fish, Wildlife, and Conservation Biology from Colorado State University in Fort Collins, CO. Her interest in acoustic ecology and the impact of anthropogenic structures on wildlife was peaked when she worked as a research assistant for the Natural Sounds and Night Skies Division Lab at CSU.
David Golden
Underline Monitoring Project, Field Crew Leader
David Golden received a B.A. in Environmental Studies with a concentration in Conservation and Restoration, as well as minors in both Geography and Astronomy in 2013, from Sonoma State University in Northern California. David has worked in the environmental field since 2010; beginning with volunteer work for Solar Sonoma County, assisting in the planning of the 2011 Sustainable Enterprise Conference, taking part in the Universities Coastal Prairie Internship, being a land steward for the Fairfield Osborn Preserve and Galbreath Wildlands Preserve, creating soundscape ecology recordings of songbirds for the Universities preserves, and most recently working as a scientific aide with salmon for the Department of Fish and Wildlife. Now David has spent three years working for KESRP, learning and using conservation skills to further expand his experience in conservation monitoring.
Katrina Fisk
Underline Monitoring Project, Field Assistant
Born and raised in western Washington, Katrina has always had a deep love for all animals. She began her first small-scale migration experiment on grasshoppers in her backyard when she was seven, but has since moved on to larger study subjects. After graduating from the University of Washington, Katrina moved to north-central Washington in the gorgeous Methow Valley where she worked for a non-profit studying fire ecology and endangered rodents. Her love of birds grew after volunteering with Fish and Wildlife biologists who placed a tracking backpack on a young golden eagle. Katrina is extremely excited to be working with KESRP on the UMP project, as well as hiking the Kauaʻi mountains and exploring coral reefs.
Nikolas Madsen
Underline Monitoring Project, Field Assistant
Nik recently fledged from the University of California, Santa Cruz with a B.S. in Biology and a newfound passion for birds. During his time at UCSC, he interned for various short-term research projects which involved working with invasive grasses, fungal spores, and habitat restoration. During a 3-month field course, Nik fell in love with birds and ended up working as an educator for Ventana Wildlife Society’s California Condor recovery project the following summer. This job helped him realize that he wanted to gain more hands-on experience with endangered birds, which is why he is now on the magical island of Kauaʻi working to protect our beautiful seabirds!
Charlotte Cumberworth
Underline Monitoring Project, Field Assistant
Charlotte studied languages and traveled all over Europe, studied Mandarin in Taiwan, and worked seasonal jobs on farms in Australia before finding her true passion in Biology. She received her B.S. in Biology from the University of Cologne. Her last job was with a program out of Moss Landing Marine Labs, which monitors carcass deposition on the beaches of central California in order to detect and investigate unusual mortality events – like the Cassin’s Auklet die-off in 2014. In her free time, she volunteered for the Marine Mammal Center, SPCA’s wildlife center, the Monterey Bay Aquarium and helped with wildlife camera projects and Tri-colored Blackbird studies at the Santa Lucia Conservancy in Carmel Valley. Her interest in seabirds of Hawaiʻi was sparked when counting albatross nests on Midway for Fish & Wildlife Service last winter.
Kayleigh Chalkowski
Underline Monitoring Project, Field Assistant
Kayleigh hails from upstate New York where she graduated from Cornell University in January 2013 with a B.S. in Biology. She began working in Hawaiʻi with Kauaʻi Endangered Forest Bird Recovery Project and has made a smooth transition to surveying for seabirds. In her spare time, she enjoys taxidermizing roadkill, drinking coffee and painting with watercolor. Check out her work at kayleighchalkowski.com.
Amy Shipley
Underline Monitoring Project, Data & Radar Technician
After receiving her B.S. in Biology from the University of Toledo (Ohio) in 2005, Amy worked on various avian ecology and conservation projects around the country. She studied Florida Scrub-Jay demography and searched for the Ivory-billed Woodpecker in Florida, conducted surveys for Cactus Wrens and banded passerines in California, monitored Piping Plovers in Michigan, and used aerial radio telemetry to track movements and survival of oiled water birds along the Gulf Coast following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Amy received her M.S. in Biology from Portland State University in 2011. Her master’s project focused on post-fledging survival and habitat use of a ground-nesting passerine in a forested urban park. Amy joined the Underline Monitoring Project in 2013.
Matthew Dusch
Underline Monitoring Project, Field Assistant
Hailing from East Setauket on Long Island New York, Matt joined the Underline Monitoring Project in April 2013, after graduating from the State University of New York (SUNY) College of Environmental Science and Forestry (ESF) in Syracuse, New York in 2012. While working towards his B.S. in Conservation Biology at SUNY ESF, Matthew studied in the areas of Geospatial Information Systems, Modeling and Wildlife Science. During his stay in New York, Matthew worked at the American Museum of Natural History Center for Biodiversity & Conservation, where he created environmental niche models of lemurs in Madagascar, in order to study ecological divergence and speciation of lemur sister species. While on Long Island, Matt worked multiple seasons as a Piping Plover Steward for the Suffolk County Parks department surveying southern beaches on the east end of Long Island to determine nest success and propagation over the breeding season of the Piping Plover.
Nicole Galase
Underline Monitoring Project, Field Assistant
After receiving a Bachelor of Business Administration from the University of Hawaiʻi, Nicole gained experience in the main Hawaiian Islands working on environmental education, then spent three seasons in Papahanaumokuakea monitoring endangered species. She recently completed a Master of Marine Conservation in New Zealand and hopes to continue an interdisciplinary approach to conservation.
Morgan Harris
Underline Monitoring Project, Field Assistant
Morgan received a B.S. in Environmental Biology and Ecology in 2012 and an M.S. in Biology and Master’s GIS certificate in 2014, all from Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina. His thesis focused on how interspecific competition affects avian personality, assortative mating, and reproductive success using Eastern Bluebirds as the model species. Morgan has participated in research involving many species including spotted salamanders, hellbenders, tree swallows, stream fishes, and freshwater mussels.
Matthew Holt
Underline Monitoring Project, Field Assistant
Matt Holt received a BS in Marine Biology from the University of Rhode Island in 2006. Since then has worked all across the US, mostly in aquatic ecology. This has led him into researching salt marsh eutrophication, salmon monitoring, horseshoe crab population decline, amphibian surveys, estuary restoration, and limnology. Avian centric work has included Ardeid foraging and winter waterfowl surveys in Narragansett Bay; for 2.5 years monitored how the restoration of an estuary affected bird populations, spring breeding point counts, and shorebird foraging via point-line transects at Nisqually NWR; and helped out on bird surveys at Malheur NWR.
Jesse Beck
Underline Monitoring Project, Field Assistant
Jesse grew up in Wisconsin and earned his B.Sc. of Biogeoscience at the University of Wisconsin – Stevens Point. He became hooked on birds after mist netting Cooper’s Hawks in Wisconsin and has been working with them ever since. Before starting his current position with KESRP Underline Monitoring Project, Jesse worked with macaws in Southeastern Peru, shorebirds in South Africa and red-headed woodpeckers in Minnesota. He has also worked in avian rehabilitation and as an avian point count technician.
Jesse spends a lot of his free time hiking and birding.
Kauaʻi Endangered Seabird Recovery Project 