Diana Abraham
Applications Specialist/Science Writer
Key skills: technical writing and editing, research, information management
Diana is a researcher and technical writer at ESSA, with experience and expertise in science writing, technical editing, and information management. Since joining ESSA in 1995, Diana’s work has included literature reviews; information gathering, synthesis/analysis and presentation; writing “how-to” guidelines for custom software products; recording and reporting the proceedings of workshops and technical meetings; and data and database management. Her skills are cross-cutting and she has applied them in a wide variety of disciplines, including environmental assessment, cumulative effects assessment, fish and wildlife ecology, forestry, and land-use planning. Diana brings to her project work a unique blend of ecological knowledge, writing and editing expertise, and an attention to detail that ensures her work products are always of the highest quality. Diana holds an Honours B.Sc. in Biology from Queen’s University and an M.Sc. in Zoologyfrom the University of Western Ontario.
Clint Alexander
Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences Team Leader
Key skills: decision and trade-off analysis, simulation modelling, technical facilitation, information system architecture and project management.
Clint is an integration specialist focused on decision and trade-off analysis methods for aquatic resource management problems. Focal areas include trade-off evaluations for reservoir operations, climate change adaptation, water budget studies and large-scale watershed restoration programs in Western North America. Many of his projects involve technical facilitation and the development of computer tools, such as the Premier’s Award winning Okanagan Fish/Water Management Tool, and the Sacramento River Ecological Flows Tool. Clint has over 11 years of consulting experience with ESSA Technologies Ltd, and holds a B.Sc. in Ecology from the University of British Columbia and a Masters in Resource and Environmental Management from Simon Fraser University. He enjoys coffee, biodynamic wines, ‘The Stig’s’ test laps, grappling with global environmental conscientisation, scathing sardonic humour and coaching lacrosse.
Philip Bailey
Environmental Information Systems Team Leader
Key skills: GIS, expert systems, environmental information systems, ecological modeling and databases
Philip is interested in solving complex spatial problems using Geographical Information Systems (GIS). His experience has focused on expert decision support systems for environmental applications. This subject area demands a strong information technology focus as well as a multi-disciplinary ecological understanding and appreciation for stakeholder concerns.
Prior to joining ESSA, Philip worked with Envision Sustainability Tools developing QUEST, educational software that helps stakeholders understand decision tradeoffs for urban futures. Earlier still, at Nobility Environmental Software Systems he was part of an award winning team that pioneered applications linking GIS with expert systems. The applications were intended to capture institutional knowledge of environmental issues and convey them through data rules using interactive digital maps.
Recent projects at ESSA have focused on environmental information systems; both large and small databases aimed at helping managers reduce uncertainty around environmental issues. Philip led the development of a GIS-enabled habitat model for Chinook Salmon in the Yukon Territory that integrated tens of millions of geographic features with biological rules to determine the effects of placer mining on fish habitat. He’s also actively involved in a multi-disciplinary database for decision makers working on a river restoration project in California. Most recently, Philip is working with a utility company to automate the storage and graphical reporting of their environmental performance data for corporate reporting using a multi-user web-enabled application. On a separate initiative he is currently working with the United States Forest Service to develop a suite of GIS tools to automate the processing of LiDAR imagery to aid in the understanding of fish habitat in freshwater streams.
Philip has a Ph.D. in Geographical Information Systems and a B.Sc. in Topographic Science and Geography. His doctoral thesis focused on pioneering spatial techniques to estimate the carbon content of the Amazonian tropical forest biome using remotely sensed satellite images. Philip also is a trained elephant mahoot.
Sarah Beukema
Senior Systems Ecologist
Key skills: forest ecosystem and natural disturbance modelling, carbon budget modelling, workshop facilitation
Sarah is a Registered Professional Biologist and Senior Systems Ecologist with almost 20 years experience in ecological simulation modeling and analysis. She holds a B.A. in Mathematics and Biology from Kalamazoo College, and a M.Sc. in Zoology/Applied Mathematics from the University of British Columbia. While at ESSA, Sarah has been the lead or co-developer for numerous models that simulate ecosystem dynamics at a variety of scales. These models cover a range of issues from natural disturbances at the stand level (e.g., fire or root disease) to spatial and non-spatial landscape simulation models such as TELSA and VDDT. She has also worked extensively developing and using carbon accounting models such as the CBM-CFS3. In addition, she has led numerous workshops discussing issues ranging from dynamics of fire or bark beetles, to impacts of climate change, to different long-term planning strategies.
Samantha Boardley
Environmental Specialist
Key Skills: international development, integrated water resource management, climate change adaptation and policy, environmental assessment, community development, training and facilitation.
Samantha joined ESSA as an environment specialist in 2009, bringing with her five years professional experience in international development, water resource management, and climate change adaptation. She holds a M.Sc. in Water Science, Policy and Management from the University of Oxford, UK, and a B.Sc. in Environmental Sciences from the University of Guelph.
To date, Samantha’s field experience has included work in Uganda, Ghana, and South Africa, including the management of a collaborative and multilateral water and sanitation project in Limpopo Province, northern South Africa. In addition, Samantha has coordinated the design and implementation of three international climate change and adaptation projects. In 2004, Samantha co-authored three reports to the South African Department of Water Affairs and Forestry (DWAF) on the vulnerability of South Africa’s water resources to climate change. In 2007/2008, as a policy analyst for an independent think-tank organization, Samantha coordinated a detailed review and evaluation of Canada’s compliance with G8 commitments to greenhouse gas mitigation and climate change adaptation. In early 2009, Samantha designed and delivered a workshop on climate change, adaptation, and project planning for various government and civil society organizations of Northern Ghana. Currently, her work with ESSA includes assisting a World Bank funded climate change adaptation project in Ghana and Bangladesh.
Katherine Bryan
GIS Analyst
Key skills: GIS analysis and programming, spatial and tabular data compilation, web mapping, database design
Katherine Bryan is a Geographic Information Systems Analyst with a background in environmental studies. She holds a B.Sc. (Hons) in Natural Resources Conservation from the University of British Columbia and an Advanced Diploma of Technology in Geographic Information Systems from the British Columbia Institute of Technology. Katy supports a wide variety of projects at ESSA with specialization in stream network analysis for fish habitat modeling and data manipulation and management for environmental information systems. Katy is also on the support team for TELSA and VDDT, two landscape simulation tools developed by ESSA. She has worked on numerous TELSA and VDDT projects preparing simulations and mapping/summarizing results.
David Carr
Senior Systems Analyst
Key skills: environmental information systems, software methodologies and architecture, database design and analysis
David is a senior software developer with expertise in software development methodologies, design, and architecture. He has more than 11 years of experience developing robust, high-quality Windows applications for real-world applications. Some of these projects have included:
- the Okanagan Fish/Water Management tool, a browser-based scientific tool for balancing trade-offs associated with in-season water releases from Okanagan Lake Dam;
- a deterministic population model for Ontario moose, with parameter-rich graphing output. It is based upon Visual Basic ActiveX and an Access database using ADO;
- a photo-sharing website based upon VB in ASP, ADO, and SQL Server;
- a VC++/COM-based distributed ship navigation simulator, including interfacing to hydraulic platform; and
- the scenario-rich CCDAM decision analysis model using VB, ADO, and SQL.
David has held a variety of roles on these projects and others, from being a sole-developer for Windows desktop applications to technical management of large-scale projects. He is fluent in using VC++, Visual Basic, VB.NET, VBA, Javascript, HTML, XML, and SQL, and is able to switch between these languages easily to meet the demands of the task at hand.
Leonardo Frid
Senior Systems Ecologist
Key skills: terrestrial ecosystem and natural disturbance modelling, workshop facilitation, training, decision support system design and development
Leonardo Frid is a Registered Professional Biologist and Systems Ecologist with over ten years experience in ecological research and simulation modeling. He holds a B.Sc. in Conservation Biology and a M.Sc. in Zoology from the University of British Columbia. Over the last six years Leo has worked on the development of models for strategic planning in managing terrestrial landscapes. He has collaborated with various clients in western North America to model fire regimes, the impacts of forestry on habitat and the outcome of alternative restoration and prevention scenarios for areas encroached by invasive plants. Leo is a key member of the development team for TELSA and VDDT, two landscape simulation tools developed by ESSA that are used widely throughout North America for strategic planning by organizations such as the US Forest Service, The Nature Conservancy, The BC Ministry of Forests and LANDFIRE. His scientific skills include simulation modeling of terrestrial ecosystems, experimental design and field sampling. He has worked on and published studies on rare and endangered amphibians, insect population dynamics, plant herbivore interactions, landscape simulation models and biological control. Leo has also participated and led numerous workshop groups covering topics ranging from technical and scientific issues, to strategic planning. He has delivered various courses training participants in the use of landscape simulation modeling tools for decision support. When he is not working, Leo enjoys spending time with his wife and two young daughters in the wild spaces of British Columbia.
Lorne Greig
Environmental Management Team Leader
Key skills: facilitation and public consultation, environmental mediation, policy analysis, adaptive management, environmental and cumulative effects assessment
David Marmorek
President
Key skills: simulation modeling, ecological risk assessment, aquatic ecology, , monitoring design, adaptive management, decision analysis, facilitation, team leadership
David is an aquatic ecologist with 30 years of experience in predicting and assessing the potential impacts of human activities on ecosystems, and developing plans to rehabilitate damaged ecosystems and recover threatened biota. His academic background includes an Honours B.E.S. (Environmental Studies and Mathematics) from the University of Waterloo, and an M.Sc. in Zoology from the University of British Columbia. During his career he has led or contributed to multi-agency, interdisciplinary teams assessing the impacts of acidic deposition, pulp mills, forestry, hydro-electric dams, fish harvesting, power plants, climate change and urban/industrial pollution in North America, South America and Asia. More recently, his work has focused on how dams and flow management affect salmon and other species in California (Clear Creek, Trinity River, Sacramento River), the Pacific Northwest (U.S. Columbia Basin) and British Columbia (Cheakamus, Okanagan, Canadian Columbia Basin). His efforts have contributed significantly towards the development and implementation of creative, effective approaches for recovering salmon populations, managing water to meet multiple objectives, habitat restoration, adaptive management and monitoring / evaluation. David is the author of over 20 peer-reviewed publications, is an Adjunct Professor at the School of Resource and Environmental Management at Simon Fraser University, and serves on science advisory panels for Puget Sound and Platte River ecosystem recovery efforts. He is a recipient of the Bronze Medal for Commendable Service from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. He is an avid skier and hiker, and proud father of two talented sons.
Liz martell
research analyst 
Key skills: document production, desktop publishing, editing, project support, research, graphic design
Liz is a research assistant and the newest member of ESSA. She offers a blend of editorial knowledge and scientific background that allows her to support the ESSA staff. Her creativity and communication skills are valuable for conveying scientific information to a range of audiences. Liz’s current role at ESSA includes preparing and editing documents and illustrations, project support, and website maintenance. Prior to joining ESSA, Liz provided research and project support in several related disciplines. Her interests and experiences include terrestrial landscape and ecosystem ecology, managing ecosystem services and understanding multi-disciplinary ecological problems. Liz holds BSc and MSc degrees in Zoology from the University of Wisconsin. Her thesis work focused on soil nitrogen availability among post-fire lodgepole pine stands in Yellowstone National Park.
Simon Mead
Senior Environment Specialist
Key skills: international development, environmental assessment, soil and water conservation, subsistence agriculture, water and sanitation, community development
Simon has a B.Sc. in Environmental Management from Cranfield University (Silsoe), UK and an M.A. in Environment, Development and Policy from University of Sussex, UK. His experience has been mainly in an international development context in the fields of environmental management, agriculture and water and sanitation and has included project management, environmental impact assessment, community-based environmental initiatives, the management of field data collection and data and policy analysis. Simon has had significant experience in conducting environmental assessments to ensure that CIDA-funded projects comply with the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act (CEAA). Simon’s field experience has included: two years as Environmental Specialist on the $11M CIDA-funded "Community Water, Sanitation and Health" project in Malawi; Team Leader of a USAID-funded water harvesting and irrigation project in Ethiopia; and two years in the field in Botswana, carrying out water resources and river basin studies and environmental impact assessments for rural water supply and irrigation projects. His most recent work includes community-based activities on the CIDA-funded Vietnam Environmental Governance Project (VPEG) and managing a climate change adaptation project funded by the World Bank.
Carol Murray
Senior Systems Ecologist
Key skills: adaptive management, state of environment reporting, environmental assessment, workshop facilitation, training, decision support
Carol is a Registered Professional Biologist and a Senior Systems Ecologist with ESSA. She holds a B.Sc. in Biology from McGill University and an M.Sc. in Zoology from the University of Toronto. She has over 20 years of experience across a wide range of environmental management projects in nine countries, and has managed more than 90 projects both domestically and internationally. Her focus areas include technical advice and training in adaptive management (e.g. training workshops for the BC Forest Service; technical reviews of Adaptive Management Plans for various development projects), state-of-environment reporting and related indicator work (e.g. assessment of monitoring and reporting by the BC Ministry of Environment), technical advice and training in environmental assessment (e.g. training courses for the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency on environmental assessments (EA) of major resource projects and on harmonized BC-federal EA; leading technical reviews of EA reports), decision support for invasive species management (e.g. decision tools for managing invasive plants in Garry Oak ecosystems), and both technical assistance and capacity development for First Nations (clients include the Cowichan Tribes, Hul’qumi’num Treaty Group, Katzie First Nation, and the First Nations EA Technical Working Group). She lives on a small island along the BC coast with her husband and dog.
Marc Nelitz
Systems Ecologist
Key skills: decision support and environmental management systems, regulatory and policy implementation, state of environment reporting, conceptual modeling, peer reviews, and workshop facilitation.
Marc is a Systems Ecologist working in Vancouver with ESSA’s Environmental Management Team. He works in the areas of Adaptive Environmental Assessment and Management, Regulatory and Policy Implementation, Climate Change Vulnerability and Adaptation, and State of Environment Reporting. His passion is to improve natural resource management by bridging gaps among science, decision making, and environmental policy, and to do so by working with a diverse set of clients and collaborators – academics, non-governmental organizations, government, First Nations, and industry. In pursuing his passions, he has contributed to implementation of Fisheries and Oceans Canada’s Wild Salmon Policy, developing scientific approaches for designating Temperature Sensitive Streams and Fisheries Sensitive Watersheds for the B.C. Ministry of Environment, assessing vulnerability of freshwater ecosystems to climate change, and supporting the Canadian Wildlife Service in developing a risk management framework for migratory birds.
Marc holds a Bachelor of Science in Ecology and Environmental Biology from the University of British Columbia and a Master’s of Resource Management from Simon Fraser University. He is also a Registered Professional Biologist with the College of Applied Biology.
Darcy Pickard
Senior Statistician
Key skills: sampling design, design of experiment, simulation modeling, data analysis, and workshop facilitation.
Darcy Pickard is a statistician with over ten years of applied statistical experience including most recently, five years applying statistical methods to ecological problems. She holds a B.Sc. in Statistics, minor in Ecology and a M.Sc. in Statistics from Simon Fraser University. Darcy has worked on a range of research projects involving study design, data analysis and simulation modeling, in British Columbia, Idaho, Montana, New York, Oregon and California. Recent analytical projects have involved: guidance for Wildlife Habitat Area effectiveness monitoring in BC, analysis of before after control impact data to inform decisions regarding the re-introduction of sockeye to the Coquitlam reservoir, developing fractional factorial designs to improve the efficiency of large fire management simulations, numerous fish related analyses (e.g. redd datasets, habitat suitability modeling, smolt outmigrant monitoring etc…), and a simulation study to evaluate alternative monitoring plans for salmonids in the Columbia River Basin. She has helped to facilitate two large multi-year and multi-objective monitoring design projects: the Collaborative Systemwide Monitoring and Evaluation Project in the Columbia River Basin, and the Trinity River Restoration Program in California. Darcy enjoys working with people and helping to bridge the gap between biologists and statisticians. She believes it is very important to understand the data first hand and makes it a priority to get out in the field and get her hands dirty. In addition to her statistical expertise and facilitation experience, Darcy is educated in ecology and field techniques making her uniquely suited to integrate between the two domains.
Marc Porter
Systems Ecologist
Key skills: fisheries science, habitat modeling, fish/wildlife monitoring and evaluation, GIS analysis, EIA, statistical design and analyses, technical writing, facilitation
Marc is a Registered Professional Biologist and Systems Ecologist at ESSA with over 20 years experience in fisheries and wildlife sciences. He is particularly skilled in the use of geographic information systems (GIS) for integrating biological and physical information. Marc has a Bachelors degree in Wildlife Biology and a Master’s in Zoology, both from the University of Guelph. His projects at ESSA involve both analysis and technical facilitation, and recent work includes monitoring, evaluation and restoration plans for salmon, steelhead and bull trout in the Columbia Basin; development of a comprehensive adaptive management framework to evaluate the effects of restored river flows in California’s Trinity River on listed fish, birds, amphibians and reptiles; evaluating the effects of watershed restoration projects on salmon production; scoping the feasibility of restoring anadromous salmon to the Canadian reaches of the Upper Columbia River; and development of GIS-based models for describing and predicting occurrences of fish species in BC watersheds. He is also currently assisting in the development of a provincial-scale habitat monitoring program for designated Fisheries Sensitive Watersheds in BC. Before joining ESSA, Marc’s work experience included analyses of large scale inventory datasets of both fish populations and their habitat, and he was involved in a suite of field-based fisheries and wildlife research focused on the effects of BC logging practices. Additionally, Marc has undertaken fish and wildlife inventories throughout BC, Ontario, Alberta and the Yukon.
Frank Poulsen
Systems Analyst
Key skills: ecosystem modeling, software development, GIS and statistical analysis
Frank holds a M.Sc. in Engineering from the Technical University of Denmark. He wrote his Master Thesis on Numerical Modelling of Mussel Growth at the National Environmental Research Institute in Denmark, developing an ecological model of Blue Mussel growth on longline system in Sweden. The model included simulating hydrology, vertical water column mixing, nutrient cycles, algae and mussel growth. Frank has also utilized advanced spatial and statistical methods to analyze field data in ArcMap and Matlab. Amongst other activities, Frank has conducted fieldwork for Parks Canada, and completed work on several technical environmental topics for Alaska Fish and Game.
Donald Robinson
Senior Systems Ecologist
Key skills: ecosystem modelling, spatial modelling, forest growth and yield modelling, workshop facilitation
Don is a Registered Professional Biologist and Systems Ecologist with 20 years experience in ecological simulation modelling and analysis. He holds BSc and MSc degrees in Zoology from the University of British Columbia, with additional graduate studies at Cornell University. At ESSA his skills are applied to terrestrial and aquatic ecosystem management problems requiring a combination of mathematical ecology, statistics and probability, and numerical methods.
Besides simulation modelling he is also very interested in multivariate visualization and in the development of user-oriented quantitative tools to enable and strengthen decision making for natural resource management. Don also has an ongoing interest in spatial modelling of natural systems and in the development of cross-scale approaches to spatial processes. Don has led and participated in numerous workshops to clarify and solve management problems having a large science component, and assisted in the development of technical approaches to develop science-based responses to resource management problems.
Katherine Wieckowski
Systems Ecologist
Key skills: decision and trade-off analyses, experimental design, simulation modelling, workshop facilitation, management strategy evaluation
Katherine is a Systems Ecologist with ESSA’s Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences Team. Her work focuses on improving fisheries and water management through the use of qualitative and quantitative tools to inform decision making. She earned a B.Sc. from McGill University (double major in Biology and International Development Studies) and a Master of Resource Management (Fisheries Science) from Simon Fraser University.
Over the past five years she has worked on a number of fisheries issues in both marine and freshwater environments. This work has concentrated on different scales of interest including: individual watersheds (e.g., Columbia, Sacramento, Fraser, and Okanagan basins), Fisheries and Oceans Canada management areas, well as at the provincial scale. Katherine has worked on several projects relating to different aspects of salmon management in BC (e.g., Wild Salmon Policy, use of traditional and local knowledge in salmon management) and the Pacific Northwest (e.g., monitoring and evaluation in the Trinity River; hydro analyses for the Columbia Basin). She has also worked extensively on developing habitat indicators and monitoring designs for both conservation and recovery purposes.
Prior to joining ESSA, Katherine worked on several conservation projects including: a recovery strategy for arctic Bowhead, assessment of ecosystem health using amphibians as indicators of environmental quality, and monitoring seahorse populations and the fishing pressures exerted on them. Her thesis work focused on alternative methods for modelling fisherman behaviour and knowledge to predict the spatial distribution of fishing effort in response to management actions.