CARLA CICERO
The Cooper Ornithological Society (COS) is pleased to bestow Honorary Membership to Dr. Carla Cicero, for her outstanding service to the Society and to ornithology. Carla Cicero is the staff curator of birds at the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, University of California, Berkeley. She holds both a B.S. and a Ph.D. from UC Berkeley. Her research uses morphologic, molecular, vocal, and GIS data to examine patterns and processes of differentiation and secondary contact in bird populations of western North America. She also uses molecular phylogenetic methods to investigate the evolution of behavioral and ecological traits at the species level. In addition to research, Carla is active in biodiversity informatics. She served as a principal investigator on the National Science Foundation (NSF) project to develop ORNIS ( http://ornisnet.org), an online network of distributed data on avian biodiversity from museum collections and observational datasets—and also on a related NSF-funded project, VertNet ( http://vertnet.org), which brings ORNIS together with other vertebrate-biodiversity networks into a cloud computing platform. Carla has authored or coauthored more than 52 papers in a diverse array of journals, including The Condor, The Auk, Ornithological Monographs, Evolution, Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, and Molecular Ecology. She has written one monograph (University of California Publications in Zoology) and coedited a volume of Ornithological Monographs. She also has regularly presented papers and posters at professional meetings.
Carla joined the COS as a graduate student and has served on the Board of Directors (2012–15). She also served the COS on the Painton Award Committee and as COS representative to the Committee for Selection of Travel Award Participants to the 2010 International Ornithology Congress in Brazil. While serving on the Board of Directors in 2014, Carla stepped forward to lead the initiative to implement the joint website of the COS and the American Ornithologists' Union (AOU), americanornithology.org. After many months of work, which included coordination among the societies, our members, and a website development firm, americanornithology.org was launched. The website is a colorful, dynamic, and informative resource for our members and for others looking for information about our societies. Since its launch, it has continued to mature and to serve our societies. Carla's leadership was instrumental in the success of this joint venture of the COS and AOU.
In addition to her service to the COS, Carla has served as an elective councilor to the AOU, as well as on numerous AOU committees, including Birds of North America Liaison (current), Nominations of Fellows and Elective Members, Classification and Nomenclature (current), Bird Collections (current), Web Site, Early Professionals, and Student Awards. Although Carla does not formally advise students, she has served on the graduate thesis committee for students from Canada and Guatemala and has trained more than 75 undergraduate students in museum curation, biodiversity informatics, archival and audio digitization, field collection methods, specimen preparation, molecular research, and analysis of sound recordings. Throughout her career, Carla has been committed to engaging students in ornithology.
Thus, the COS is proud to award Honorary Membership to Dr. Carla Cicero for her outstanding contributions to the Society and to ornithology.
JEFFREY F. KELLY
The Cooper Ornithological Society is pleased to bestow Honorary Membership to Dr. Jeffrey F. Kelly, for his past outstanding service to the Society and to ornithology. Jeff is director of the Oklahoma Biological Survey and a professor of biology at the University of Oklahoma. He received his B.S. from the University of Maine, M.S. from Oklahoma State University, and Ph.D. from Colorado State University. Jeff also held positions as heritage zoologist with the Oklahoma Biological Survey, postdoctoral researcher with the USDA Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station, and instructor of biology at Colorado State University.
Jeff has studied the avifauna of semiarid rangelands and riparian zones for more than 25 years. His major research focus continues to be the ecology of migratory songbirds (AnimalMigration.org). He began using stable isotopes to understand large-scale songbird movements, migratory connectivity, and diets in the late 1990s, and that research continues. His new research emphasis is in the emerging discipline of aeroecology, and he is engaged in interdisciplinary research that uses radar remote sensing to understand macro-scale changes in the phenology, distribution, and abundance of songbird migration in response to global change. He has authored or coauthored 65 peer-reviewed publications, including four in The Condor. The NSF, the USDA Agriculture and Food Research Initiative, and the USGS currently fund his research, and he is working with an interdisciplinary team to train graduate students at this interface through an NSF-funded National Research Traineeship program in aeroecology. Jeff teaches courses in population biology and biological conservation, and he is the lead investigator on a Department of Education grant to provide Graduate Assistance in Areas of National Need to graduate students in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Oklahoma.
Jeff has been a member of the COS since he was a student in the 1990s and won a student travel award in 1996. Jeff has been a leader in the Society, serving as treasurer (2012–14), on the Board of Directors (2014–17), as a reviewing editor for The Condor (2011–13), on the review board for Studies in Avian Biology (2009–13), and on the Publications Committee (2011–13). He served as local committee chair for the 2015 joint meeting of the COS and AOU held on the campus of University of Oklahoma, and was very active in organizing the 2001 COS meeting in Albuquerque, New Mexico, serving on the local and scientific committees and cohosting a symposium on grassland birds. Other recognition of his support for ornithology include his election as a Fellow of the AOU and his service as an associate editor of The Auk and the Journal of Wildlife Management and coeditor of the Bulletin of the Oklahoma Ornithological Society.
Thus, the COS is proud to award Honorary Membership to Dr. Jeffrey F. Kelly for his outstanding contributions to the Society and to ornithology.
