Director and Associate Director Biographies

PORTIA HALBERT
Vice President, Board of Directors

Bachelor of Science, Environmental Resources, Arizona State Univ., Tempe, AZ

Portia Halbert is a Senior Environmental Scientist with the Santa Cruz District of California State Parks. For 19 years she has been part of a resource management team who works to manage parkland and restore habitat in the 70,000 acres of Parks in Santa Cruz and San Mateo counties. Her experience is based on a wide variety of work such as restoration using heavy equipment for earthmoving, planting and maintaining large areas with native plants, refining the work on invasive exotic plants and incorporating early detection and rapid response, and working with sensitive species such as the California red-legged frog and San Francisco garter snake. As a last and personal favorite, she is also a member the statewide burn crew, helping to reintroduce fire to the landscape; through this work she has discovered that everyone is a closeted pyromaniac. In her consulting business she conducts inland surveys for the marbled murrelet, and eradicates non-native plant species. She is a member of the California Invasive Plant Council.

Inger Marie Laursen
associate Director, Board of Directors

Bachelor of Arts, Marine Biology, UC Santa Cruz, California
Master of Science, Biology, University of Copenhagen, Denmark

Inger Marie Laursen is a consulting Wildlife Biologist with a diverse range of experience with wildlife across ecosystems. She started her science career conducting surveys for and research on marine mammals at sea and from shore. Many of the projects were here in the Monterey Bay and along the west coast. She worked with UCSC, Monterey Bay Aquarium, NOAA, MBNMS, and consulting companies. Species of focus included southern sea otter, humpback and gray whale. She has worked as a naturalist for NOAA, on marine life tours, and provided marine mammal education to K-6 students for Pacific Cetacean Group. Inger Marie went on to do avian and terrestrial research for her M.Sc. conducting field studies in Denmark on red kites, barn owls and European kestrels.  After her post-graduate degree, Inger Marie started working as a freelance wildlife biologist. She currently conducts surveys and habitat assessments for birds, amphibians, reptiles, salmonids, marine and terrestrial mammals, and monarch butterflies. She has conducted numerous bird studies throughout California. She participates regularly in aquatic studies for steelhead salmon, coho salmon, tidewater goby, California red-legged frog, and salamanders. Inger Marie continues to do conservation research. She is part of a long-term UCSC research project on the social behavior of wintering of golden-crowned sparrows, and a research and a monitoring project of listed amphibians with Elkhorn Slough Estuarine Research Reserve.

Jen Michelsen
President, Board of Directors

Bachelors of Science, Biology, Natural Resource Conservation, Sacramento State University, Sacramento, CA

Jen Michelsen is an Environmental Planner at Valley Water in Santa Clara County and also serves the County of Santa Cruz on the Fish and Wildlife Commission. Jen’s experience includes wildlife research/ conservation, water resource management, long range water sustainability planning, water quality, environmental compliance, watershed management/stewardship, watershed education, communications, water conservation, and restoration project management. In her free time you can find her camping in wild places, birding, or traveling the world with her husband and young daughter.

Zane Moore, Phd candidate, plant biology, UC Davis
Member, Board of Directors

Zane Moore is a PhD candidate in the Plant Biology Graduate Group at University of California, Davis where he studies redwood anatomy and genomics. His dissertation is examining evolution of coast redwood at the smallest possible scale, within the individual old trees. Zane also serves as a docent at Big Basin Redwoods State Park, where he has worked in redwood ecology for the past decade. He has discovered the tallest individuals of six species in the Santa Cruz Mountains: redwood, Douglas fir, sycamore, tanoak, bay laurel, and madrone—three of which are world records. Zane frequently gives talks in the Santa Cruz Mountains region on anything and everything tree-related, from physiology and architecture to fire and ecology. He is grateful to his mentors in the region, specifically Steve Singer (ecologist, ornithologist, and Secretary/Treasurer of the SCMBC) and the late Scott Peden (long-time docent, botanist, and photographer of Big Basin Redwoods and Butano State Parks).

will russell
Member, Board of Directors

Bachelor of Arts, Biology, UC Santa Cruz
Master of Science, Environmental Studies, San Jose SU
Doctor of Philosophy, Environmental Science Policy and Management, UC Berkeley

Will Russell is an Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies at San Jose State University where he teaches Sustainable Forest Management and Natural Resource Analysis. His research is focused on disturbance, conservation, and restoration of forest ecosystems, with an emphasis on coast redwood forests. He has also done extensive work on ecological disturbance in the Sierra Nevada mixed conifer and sub-alpine forests. He supports graduate student research including the effects of timber harvest of redwood forests, fire ecology, and environmental education. Dr. Russell also spent two years with the USDA Forest Service, four years with the USGS Biological Resources Division, and one year with the California State Parks.

STEVE SINGER
Secretary/Treasurer, Board of Directors

Bachelor of Science, Biology, UC Irvine
Master of Science, Ecology, Rutgers University
Certified Wildlife Biologist, TWS (formerly, see note below about TWS)

Steve is the owner of Steven Singer Environmental and Ecological Services, a local environmental consulting business that specializes in forest biology, old-growth redwood ecosystems, and inland habitat management for the Marbled Murrelet, an endangered seabird. He is the co-editor of the Marbled Murrelet Landscape Management Plan for the Santa Cruz Mountains (Zone 6). His pioneering research on the nesting ecology of the Marbled Murrelet has been partially recounted in the book, Rare Bird, by Maria Ruth. He continues to monitor murrelet numbers locally and is a member of the Marbled Murrelet Technical Committee of the Pacific Seabird Group. Formerly, he also consulted in wildland soil conservation work, which included road removal, trail design, repair of logged-over lands, channel stabilization, and gully control. Steve was the first person to formulate successful treatment methods for the abundant gullies found on sodic subsoils in coastal San Mateo County. For many years he was an adjunct faculty member at Cabrillo College where he taught a Soil Conservation class.  Steve is a Research Associate for the Santa Cruz City Museum of Natural History, and a member of the Cooper Ornithological Society, the Pacific Seabird Group, and the California Native Plant Society. He is a former member of the Wildlife Society but discontinued his membership when that organization betrayed its membership and its own stated goals by supporting the wildlife policies of the Trump administration.

JERRY SMITH
Member, Board of Directors

Bachelor of Science, Conservation, San Jose SU
Master of Arts, Natural Science, San Jose SU
Doctor of Philosophy, Aquatic Ecology, UC Davis

Jerry Smith is a retired former Associate Professor of Biological Sciences at San Jose State University, where he taught Aquatic Ecology, Fisheries Management, and Conservation Biology. Since 1972 he has conducted research on the distribution and ecology of freshwater fishes in the central coast of California. Since 1984 most of his fish studies have been concerned with stream and estuarine ecology of steelhead, coho salmon, and tidewater goby. He served on the federal recovery team for the threatened delta smelt (San Francisco Bay Delta – native fishes), the state restoration team for the endangered coho salmon, and on the federal recovery team for the threatened coastal Chinook and steelhead, and endangered coho salmon. Since 1995 he and his students have conducted detailed studies of California red-legged frogs and western pond turtles at Waddell Creek in Santa Cruz County and Coyote Creek in Santa Clara County. Dr. Smith has been the major advisor for 21 master's degree theses on: stream and estuarine invertebrate ecology; steelhead, red-legged frog, foothill yellow-legged frog, and western pond turtle ecology; and steelhead, tidewater goby, and spotted owl genetics.

GEORGIA STIGALL
Member, Board of Directors

Landowner & Steward

Georgia is the founding director of Native Habitats, a privately funded science-based conservation organization focusing on restoration and preservation of biodiversity. She is also the resident co-owner and steward of a private 40-acre nature preserve in the Santa Cruz Mountains that she is managing for increased habitat values. Georgia has several years of field experience, particularly non-native plant removal, including leading volunteer habitat restoration groups as a volunteer for the National Park Service in Yosemite National Park. She was raised in the SCM bioregion and is a life-long nature activist. Her professional background includes over 35 years of management and business administration experience; with a particular emphasis on communication, streamlining processes and conflict resolution. She is vitally interested in helping to educate people regarding native species and biodiversity issues, using constructive and accessible methods. She was the 2003/2004 president of CNPS Santa Clara Valley chapter. Other affiliations and memberships include California Invasive Plants Council, Society for Ecological Restoration California, Sequoia Audubon Society and Mono Lake Committee.