Author Profiles
Evyan Borgnis - Evyan received her BS in Environmental Science from the University of San Francisco. As a student, Evyan was selected to join the Research for Undergraduate Experience program to work with Diane McKnight at Colorado University. Residing in a single-room cabin at 9500 ft in Colorado and examining redox states of dissolved organic matter in alpine wetlands inspired Evyan to pursue a career in wetland ecology.
After graduating from USF, Evyan worked on a CALFED funded project studying the effects of global climate change on SF Bay wetlands with principal investigators, Tom Parker and John Callaway, at San Francisco State University. She has since returned to the University of San Francisco to join John Callaway in quantifying carbon sequestration rates in tidal, saline wetlands of the SF Bay Estuary. Their research will help the California Climate Action Registry set up a greenhouse gas emission credit market for California, thus promoting wetland conservation and greenhouse gas reductions.
Her research interests include carbon and sediment dynamics within wetlands in the face of climate change. She hopes to learn more about the biogeochemistry of wetlands as a graduate student. Evyan has lived in San Francisco for over 5 years, conquering the steep hills on her treasured bike and attending as many indie and punk shows as possible. Her biggest challenge at the moment is learning how to play the bass.
K. Gregg Elliott - As a conservationist, writer, and educator whose 20+ year career spans the assessment of government programs in Washington, DC to land management in California to teaching science in the deep South, writing and continual learning have always been a part of my job. My training includes a BS in Biology from UNC-Chapel Hill, an MA in Science, Technology, and Public Policy from the George Washington University, and I also hold a Tennessee Professional Teacher’s license in 7-12 science and English.
For five years, I served as The Nature Conservancy’s Manager of the Cosumnes River Preserve, which protects the last undammed river flowing from the California Sierras into the Central Valley. There, my long-running love affair with birds grew into a full-fledged bird monitoring partnership, which eventually led to a role as National Fish and Wildlife Federation’s liaison to Partners in Flight. Later, at the Point Reyes Bird Observatory, I became a lead contributor to the first bird conservation plans developed by the California Riparian Habitat Joint Venture and organized a workshop on the science of open ocean Marine Protected Areas.
My passionate pursuit of birds and places of great natural beauty have taken me to some amazing places: sailing to the marine mammal and seabird colonies of the Farallones and Mexico’s San Benitos Islands, kayaking and whale-watching in Baja, birding in Guatemala’s Tikal ruins,and hiking in the Annapurnas of Nepal.
Rob Goldstein - I came up with the idea for Conservation Maven while managing the land transaction and mitigation programs for Solano Land Trust in Northern California. I realized that there was a big gap between the scientific information coming out in academic studies and the transfer of knowledge to the conservation professionals who could benefit. My goal was to develop an on-line resource to bridge that information gap and contribute to the conservation profession.
Prior to my stint at Solano Land Trust, I worked on a joint research project between University of San Francisco and UCLA evaluating wetland mitigation projects across California. I received my MS from the College of Natural Resources at Colorado State University in Fort Collins where I received a great generalist education in conservation science. While I admittedly have limited expertise in any given topic, I do possess a voracious curiosity, a passion for writing, and a gift for explaining things well, which no doubt annoys my wife and family members greatly.
My love to travel the world was sparked during my two-and-a-half year service as an agroforestry volunteer in the Peace Corps in Guatemala. Recent trips have taken me to the Dominican Republic, Vietnam, and Laos. I currently live in Manhattan with my wife Chloe and our son Russell.
Cécile Lepage - Cécile Lepage is a freelance journalist who writes in English and her native French. She has contributed to the San Francisco Bay Guardian, L’Express du Pacifique (Vancouver, Canada), La Vie (Paris, France), Beaux Arts Magazine (Paris, France), and Connaissance des Arts (Paris, France). She contributes to Conservation Maven's feature articles.
Her interest in the journalistic vocation was awoken during the upheaval of the 2003 Iraq War protests. So after brief stints as art historian and French instructor, she went back to school for journalism. In her work, she strives to find fresh perspectives on familiar issues, be they social, political, environmental, scientific, or cultural. She looks for underreported stories in the hope of expanding her readers’ and her own horizons and questioning conventional wisdom.
Peter Taylor - Peter Taylor is a science-communication consultant who lives in Maine with his wife and children. For more than a decade, Peter has developed and implemented communication strategies for nonprofit, academic, government, and business organizations at local to international scales. After receiving a bachelor's degree in biology from Williams College, Peter obtained a master's degree in ecology from the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he was a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow. Following graduate school, Peter worked on the editorial staff of Islands, an international travel magazine. His freelance writing and photography have appeared in Outside, National Wildlife, Sierra, and other magazines.
Peter founded Waterview Consulting in 2000 to cultivate understanding of environmental science and to facilitate advances in management, policy, and conservation. Keeping one foot in science and the other in communications, Peter works with organizations across the U.S. and internationally to plan, write, edit, design, and produce publications and websites. Among his recent projects are a website on marine protected areas for Conservation International, a report on marine spatial planning for The Nature Conservancy, and an analysis of ecosystem-based management tools for The David and Lucile Packard Foundation.