Core Staff

Jessica is a landscape ecologist who integrates in situ ecological data and Earth observation data within spatially explicit modeling frameworks to quantify biodiversity responses to land-use and climate change and support actionable conservation strategies. Her work spans terrestrial ecosystems across diverse taxa and socio-ecological contexts, from the tropical forests of Borneo to the Great Plains of North America. She is particularly interested in advancing tools and methods for quantifying environmental change under anthropogenic pressures, including advanced modeling approaches and field-based assessment methods such as passive wildlife monitoring (e.g., ARUs and eDNA). Jessica works with a diverse set of partners, from local communities and landowners to conservation organizations, government agencies, and international collaborators, to develop analyses and decision-support tools that are scalable across regions yet can be tailored to specific management contexts. Her work is driven by a commitment to protecting natural ecosystems, mitigating biodiversity loss, and supporting sustainable coexistence between people and wildlife.

Jessica holds a PhD in Interdisciplinary Ecology from the University of Florida, where she studied avian community responses to forest fragmentation in oil palm-dominated landscapes of Borneo, and a Master’s in Biology from the University of Central Florida where she quantified ancient Maya land-use legacies in contemporary forests using LiDAR. Prior to joining CSP, she completed a postdoctoral appointment at Oregon State University as part of a multidisciplinary team exploring the dynamics between community forestry, socioeconomics, and biodiversity in Southeast Asia. She currently resides in the Pacific Northwest.