2008 NOMINATIONS COMMITTEE:
Katie Dugger (chair), Eric Forsman, Scott McWilliams, and Marilyn Ramenofsky.
The following five people (in alphabetical order) have agreed to be nominated for the Cooper Ornithological Society (COS) Board of Directors, to serve from 2009–2012.
Bonnie Bowen is an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Organismal Biology and the Executive Director of the ISU ADVANCE Program at Iowa State University. She received her B.S. from Cornell University, New York, and her Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. She has studied behavior, demography, and genetics of cooperatively breeding birds (Groove-billed Anis [Crotophaga sulcirostris] and Mexican Jays [Aphelocoma ultramarina]) as well as reproductive ecology of ground-nesting prairie birds. She has published in The Condor and other journals and has given presentations at COS meetings. She is an Honorary Member of the Cooper Society and has served the COS as a member of the Board (1996–1999), Treasurer (1999–2001), President-elect (2001–2003), and President (2003–2005). Since stepping down as President, she has continued to participate in the COS during the period of transition of The Condor publication to the University of California Press. Other service to ornithological societies includes: Ornithological Societies of North America (OSNA) President, Chair and Treasurer (2000–present); 4th North American Ornithological Conference, Cochair of Finance and Administration Committee (2004–2006); AOU Fellow (2003); AOU Committee on Publishing Options, 2006–2007); and AOU Council (2007–2010). For the past 12 years, the Cooper Society has been a major part of her professional life. After being elected to the Board of Directors in 1996, Dr. Bowen found an opportunity to contribute her organizational skills to the COS and, in turn, received opportunities to develop leadership skills as a society officer. She wants to continue to serve the COS by becoming a member of the Board of Directors again. The strengths she would bring to the Board are her 12-year history with COS decisions and operations, her participation with other ornithological societies, including OSNA and the AOU, and her interest in helping shape the future of ornithological societies in the future. The COS, like all of the ornithological societies, is experiencing the changes that have resulted from electronic access to our journals, demographic changes in our memberships, and changes in the field of ornithology itself. These changes challenge our societies and offer new opportunities to envision the role of ornithological societies in the future. As Chair and President of OSNA, she has spent time learning and thinking about the issues that face ornithologists and ways that the ornithological community can best be served by its professional societies. As a member of the COS Board of Directors, she would use her experience with publishing, membership, and society management to help guide the COS in the coming years.
Eileen Kirsch is a research wildlife biologist with the U.S. Geological Survey Upper Midwest Environmental Sciences Center in La Crosse, WI. She holds B.S. and M.A. degrees in Biology from the University of Nebraska Omaha, and a Ph.D. in Zoology from University of Montana. She has worked on a wide variety of avian species and research issues in riparian ecosystems of the Midwest, from Least Terns (Sternula antillarum) and Piping Plovers (Charadrius melodus) on the Platte River in Nebraska to Double-crested Cormorants (Phalacrocorax auritus), herons, and songbirds on the Upper Mississippi River. She has been very active in the Cooper Ornithological Society for the past 10 years or so and was awarded Honorary Membership in 2006 for her service as Secretary (1997–2008), Student Awards Chair (1996), and Annual Meeting Chairperson (2004), as well as participation in various committees through the years. Dr. Kirsch would like to join the Board of Directors to work on challenges facing ornithological societies that will affect how we operate and provide services to ornithologists. Her past experience working with the board and officers and her historical perspective of the issues and options facing the Cooper Ornithological Society (and all ornithological societies) will be a valuable asset as the board discusses and makes decisions on how to handle these challenges.
Sievert Rohwer is an Emeritus Professor and Curator in the Department of Biology and Burke Museum, University of Washington. He trained as an undergraduate with Glen Woolfenden at the University of South Florida. Dr. Rohwer did his Master's work with Robert Mengel and his Ph.D. with Richard Johnston, both at the University of Kansas, and his postdoc with Steven Fretwell at Kansas State University. Dr. Rohwer has published 125 papers, with emphasis on avian coloration, adoption of unrelated offspring by replacement mates, molt–breeding tradeoffs, scheduling of molt in the annual cycle, studies of warbler hybrid zones, and collaborations on Old and New World phylogeographic analyses. His honors include a new species of shrew named for him, Sorex rohweri sp. nov. (Rausch et al. 2006. Mammalian Biology 72:93–105), and he was the recipient of the AOU Elliott Coues award in 2006 (Auk 124:350–352). Dr. Rowher was instrumental in the development of the endowment building for the Burke Museum and the establishment of a new university training center for museum studies in ornithology at the Burke Museum. This training center includes a major collection representing the second-largest collection of avian tissues in the world and the most comprehensive collection of extended wings in the world. Dr. Rohwer also serves as an Associate Editor for The Auk (2006–present).
Susan Skagen is a Research Wildlife Biologist for the U.S. Geological Survey at the Fort Collins Science Center, Fort Collins, Colorado. Her current research activities on birds encompass several topics, including migration stopover ecology of shorebirds and land birds in dynamic ecosystems; forecasting the effects of agricultural practices on prairie wetlands and the conservation implications for migratory shorebirds; population demography of declining prairie bird populations; and climate change as a challenge to bird conservation in arid and semiarid regions of North America. The migration ecology efforts are large in geographic scale, collaborative, and interdisciplinary. Although a traditional empirical field biologist by training, she is increasingly involved in the application of ecological modeling to research and conservation questions. Dr. Skagen has published >60 technical papers and book chapters, including fifteen papers in The Condor and The Auk. She has authored >120 technical presentations and invited seminars, including 22 papers at meetings of the Cooper Ornithological Society and the American Ornithologists' Union. Dr. Skagen has been a member of the COS since 1986; she has served as Chair of the Miller Award Committee, as a member of the Board of Directors, as cochair of several symposia at annual meetings, and as a manuscript reviewer. She currently is a Fellow of the American Ornithologists' Union and serves as cochair of the Program for Regional and International Shorebird Monitoring (PRISM). She is a member of the Executive Board of the U.S. Shorebird Planning Council, the North American Bird Conservation Initiative (NABCI) Monitoring Subcommittee, the Migration Integration Group: Research Applied Toward Education (MIGRATE) research coordination network, and the Playa Lake Joint Venture Shorebird Team and serves as affiliate faculty and graduate committee member at Colorado State University and Oklahoma State University. Dr. Skagen holds a B.S. in Zoology from the University of Wisconsin, an M.S. in Biology from Western Washington University in Bellingham, and a Ph.D. in Zoology/Wildlife Ecology from the University of Wisconsin (reproductive ecology of passerine birds). Prior to taking her current position in 1988, Dr. Skagen conducted postdoctoral research at the University of Washington on the behavioral ecology of wintering eagles and human disturbance of wildlife communities.
Blair Wolf is an Associate Professor of Biology at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. His research interests encompass the natural history, nutritional ecology, ecophysiology, and reproductive biology of birds. He has published papers in The Condor, The Auk, and Journal of Field Ornithology and coauthored three accounts for the Birds of North America. He teaches ornithology, general biology, animal physiology, and graduate courses in ecology at UNM. Dr. Wolf served as the chair of publications committee for the Cooper Society from 2000–2007 and has served one term on the board of directors. He is the instigator and coordinator of SORA, the Searchable Ornithological Research Archive, which continues to offer free access to electronic ornithological journal archives. He is very interested in extending the influence of the Cooper Society into the lives of students and researchers in developing nations and continuing to work to maintain the Cooper Society within the ranks of the top ornithological societies globally.
