Our Team

received a B.A. in Marine Studies from Prescott College and an M.S. in Biology at San Jose State University. He was awarded a 3-year Research and Conservation Fellowship focusing on waterbirds and coastal conservation at the Kino Bay Center for Cultural and Ecological Studies in Bahía Kino, Mexico. He spent two seasons working in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands before joining the CMI team in 2013. He has worked at seabird colonies throughout the North Pacific.

received his B.S. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and B.A. in Environmental Studies from the University of California Santa Cruz in June 2024. As an undergrad, he focused heavily on habitat restoration and worked in the field for UC natural reserves. He’s done several research studies on endangered fauna in the bay area and is enthusiastic about protecting vulnerable species. He’s a passionate wildlife biologist and has a special interest in herpetology, invertebrate zoology, and insect ecology.

received a Bachelor of Science degree in Ecology: Evolution, Behavior, and Ecology with a minor in Environmental Studies from the University of California, San Diego in June 2020. As an undergrad, she interned for a lab studying the effectiveness of native pollinator species. After college, her passion for conservation led her to spend a season working with Colorado Parks and Wildlife as an aquatic field technician.

earned a B.S. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Michigan and an M.S. at James Madison University where she studied passerine song in the context of urbanization. She is an avid birder and has extensive field experience. She has worked throughout much of the western United States on various avian field projects for a variety of organizations including non-profit bird observatories, government agencies, and private consulting.

received his B.S. from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln and his M.S. in computer science from the University of Edinburgh and the University of Trento. He has held technical leadership roles in artificial intelligence and software engineering at three fast-paced startups and through two acquisitions. Through these positions he has had the opportunity to apply software and data science to some of his core interests, including weather and climate, food production, healthy eating, remote sensing—and now conservation. He also completed a year of service for AmeriCorps VISTA, deploying water monitoring databases for abandoned mine pollution treatment systems.

received a B.S. in Environmental Science from the University of Nevada, Reno in May 2022. As an undergrad, she worked various research, field, and consulting positions throughout Nevada and California. Through these jobs, she had the opportunity to work in the fields of conservation and restoration, ecohydrology, and environmental justice. She is particularly interested in endangered species conservation.

received a Bachelor of Science degree in Environmental Systems: Evolution, Behavior, and Ecology from the University of California, San Diego in June 2011. As an undergraduate she interned at NOAA-Southwest Fisheries Science Center in the Marine Mammal Genetics Lab and the Antarctic Ecosystems Research Division. After graduating she spent 5 years researching cetacean acoustics in the Atlantic, Pacific, Gulf of Mexico, and Alaska. She has extensive experience both collecting and analyzing acoustic data.

received an MBA from the College of Notre Dame. She worked in marketing for Ziff-Davis Publishing positioning products and services to increase awareness and build brand equity. She managed public relations efforts maintaining media relations and organizing promotional events. She has held several volunteer positions supporting local public schools and served on a local non-profit board for over 8 years.

received a Ph.D. in Ecology from University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and a B.A. in Biology from Colorado College. His dissertation research focused on acoustic communication behavior in Pterodroma Petrels, one of the most threatened seabird taxa, including studies of the use of acoustic recordings for monitoring rare and elusive seabird species at breeding colonies. He was raised in Mexico and the Dominican Republic and has worked in Chile, Guyana, Hong Kong and Malaysia with Environmental Resources Management, the National Audubon Society, and the Juan Fernandez Island Conservancy.

holds a B.S. in Business Administration (Finance) from San Jose State University and brings experience in accounting and financial management with a strong background in full-cycle accounting, payroll administration, and budget management. Her experience spans diverse industries, including technology, legal services, and nonprofit organizations. Nicole is committed to using her knowledge to support environmental and socially focused initiatives, combining her professional skills with her dedication to sustainability and social responsibility.

received an MA in Anthropology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and an MA in International Administration from the University of Miami. He has over a decade of experience supporting Indigenous and other communities in mapping and monitoring their lands, and building digital tools that increase self-determination and autonomy. His professional experience includes fieldwork with communities throughout the Amazon, Caribbean, North America, East Africa, and the Pacific, and steering the direction of several open-source mapping tools and platforms, including Terrastories, Earth Defenders Toolkit, and Native Land Digital.

received a MBA from Pepperdine University. She was CEO of Management Consortium, Inc. responsible for business, strategic planning and executive coaching for Fortune 500 corporations. She served as Sr. Vice President of an international pharmaceuticals firm with sales of $1B operating in 62 countries where she directed manufacturing, distribution and worldwide engineering as well as a wholly owned subsidiary. She has served on various boards in the profit and not-for-profit sectors as well as advisory boards of several universities.

earned a B.S. in Environmental Science & Ecology from Sierra Nevada College, and an M.S. in Biostatistics from California State University, East Bay. They have extensive experience in both collecting and analyzing wildlife data and are particularly interested in ornithology. Zoe joined CMI in 2020 as an analyst, and now manages projects such as infrastructure collision monitoring and seabird colony monitoring across the Hawaiian archipelago, and Marbled Murrelet research in the Santa Cruz Mountains.

Dr. Borker is a conservation biologist, pursuing research and teaching to strengthen conservation efforts. His research goals are to inform improved design and evaluation of conservation interventions, through improved monitoring of outcomes. As the Program Director of the UCSC Doris Duke Conservation Scholars Program, Abe mentors and teaches future conservationists, accelerating students with the potential to transform conservation efforts. His journey into eco-acoustic research began with a practical need to measure seabird populations on remote islands. This work opened his ears to the vast power and potential of eavesdropping on ecological heartbeats when paired with scalable, semi-automated analysis. His scholarly and applied interest in ecological monitoring has led him down many technical and academic paths, but he still takes great joy as a naturalist listening to and recording soundscapes of special places across the globe.

Dr. Christopher W. Clark, an engineer and biologist, is the Imogene Johnson Senior Scientist in the Bioacoustics Research Program at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and in the Department of Neurobiology & Behavior at Cornell University. He also works as a subject matter expert for Marine Acoustics, Inc. and as Chief Marine Scientist with Planet OS. Chris’ research has concentrated on animal vocal communication with a particular interest in the application of advanced acoustic technologies for scientific conservation of endangered species, from birds to whales. He has pioneered the application of distributed ocean listening systems for understanding the spatial and temporal occurrences of whales at ocean-basin scales. As part of these large-scale acoustic projects, Dr. Clark and his research teams have developed advanced models by which to quantify ocean noise variability as a result of natural biotic and abiotic sound sources, including commercial shipping and energy exploration. What has evolved through this process is a new, ecologically-based paradigm for evaluating and measuring biological risks to species of interest at both the individual and population levels as well as economic and business risks as a result of regulatory compliance requirements.

Dr. David Klein is an experienced developer, researcher, and entrepreneur in neural-inspired machine learning and signal processing, which he has employed in developing commercial products in the domains of audio and visual enhancement, recognition, and compression. He has over ten years of industrial experience as an algorithm architect and developer, helping to build start-ups and authoring numerous patents. His graduate and post-graduate research focused on measuring and modeling the coding of sound in the brain. He has a long-standing interest in sensory ecology, and a passion for preserving the Earth’s marvelously complex biotopes.

Dr. Martin Lukac is a Founder and the Chief Technology Officer of Nexleaf Analytics. He also serves as a Visiting Scientist at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA). Martin holds a B.S. from Haverford College, and received his Ph.D. from UCLA for innovations in wireless seismic and acoustic sensing systems. At Nexleaf, Martin leads all aspects of the technical design and architecture of sensing systems and connected devices. His work has led to one pending patent and several more in the works.

Martin’s research experience includes building, deploying, maintaining, and evaluating embedded systems for seismic, structural, environmental, and public-health applications. He developed, deployed, and maintained one of the first large scale wireless seismic networks as part of his thesis work. This system was deployed in Peru and Mexico for over two years and spanned over 250 km. Over the course of his work at UCLA, he has worked closely with geophysicists, structural engineers, and ecologists. Martin has presented and published his work at numerous peer-reviewed conferences and journals in computer science and earth science.

received his B.S. in Biology from the UC, Santa Cruz, M.S. in Marine Sciences from Moss Landing Marine Labs, and a Ph.D. in Neurobiology and Behavior from Cornell University. He is an Adjunct Professor in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and a Research Biologist in the Institute of Marine Sciences both at the University of California Santa Cruz. He has published over 70 papers on the conservation and ecology of seabirds and island species. He co-founded Island Conservation, a science-based NGO that has protected 242 seabird colonies and 224 insular endemics from extinction and formed over 900,000ha of new marine and island protected areas in Mexico.

received a B.S. in biology from the University of California, Davis, M.S. in Marine Sciences from Moss Landing Marine Labs, and a Ph.D. in Marine Sciences from Scripps Institution of Oceanography. He is a Professor in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He co-founded Island Conservation, a science-based NGO with 35 employees and an annual budget of 5 million.