Member Updates
Maui Nui Seabird Recovery Project
- Jennifer (Jenni) K. Learned has moved from Operations/GIS Specialist to Project Manager for the Maui Nui Seabird Recovery Project.
- Jay F. Penniman has moved from managing the Maui Nui Seabird Recovery Project to Special Projects/Development Specialist.
- Cecelia (Cece) E. Frisinger has become Project Coordinator for the Maui Nui Seabird Recovery Project.
The mission of the Maui Nui Seabird Recovery Project is:
“Working to locate, protect, and enhance seabird populations and habitats in Maui Nui and throughout the state of Hawaiʻi”
Lindsay Young recently transitioned to the National Geographic Society, where she is the Vice-President of Research for the Pristine Seas program. The Pristine Seas team works with local communities, Indigenous Peoples, government, and partners to create large-scale marine protected areas globally. To date, the program has created 29 marine protected areas (MPAs) protecting more than 6.7 million square kilometers. For the next three years, Pristine Seas will focus on the tropical Pacific. As part of this program, we will be expanding our data collection techniques to include colony-based surveys of nesting seabirds in the geographies we visit, as well as a special satellite tracking program of Wedge-tailed Shearwaters (Ardenna pacifica). We plan to satellite track shearwaters in each country we visit in order to inform MPA boundaries and complement our underwater data collection, which spans from the intertidal down to 6,000 m. A special project on our upcoming 2025 expedition to Fiji will include the first attempt to capture and satellite tag Fiji Petrels (Pseudobulweria macgillivrayi) in partnership with Birdlife International and Nature Fiji in an effort to locate montane breeding colonies and inform connectivity between marine and terrestrial habitats.
Mark J. Rauzon is retiring from Laney College, Oakland, CA after 17 years as a tenured professor in Geography. Mark was a recent recipient of Stanford University’s Education Partnership for Internationalizing Curriculum (EPIC) where the Bering Sea climate chaos was used to explore Ecology, Geo-politics, Energy Economics, etc. In retirement Mark is weaving this information into a book about the Bering Sea to be published by University of British Columbia. Here is Mark at his retirement party rapping about the water cycle:
