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Justina C. Ray
WCS Canada President & Senior Scientist
Dr. Justina Ray has led the Wildlife Conservation Society Canada since its incorporation in 2004. In addition to overseeing the operations of WCS Canada, Justina is involved in research and policy activities in associated with conservation planning in northern landscapes, with a particular focus on wolverine and caribou. Although Justina worked for years in African and Asian tropical forests, North America has been her predominant geographic focus over the past decade. The questions that drive her research are rooted in evaluating the role of shifting landscapes in biodiversity decline and/or change in forested ecosystems. These issues include quantifying the impacts of development activities on biodiversity, including effects of forest changes on mammal population and community structure, and monitoring of species at risk. In Canada, Justina has been appointed to numerous government-led advisory panels, including: Ontario Wolverine Recovery Team, the Nova Scotia Marten and Lynx Recovery Team, the Ontario Caribou Science Advisory Panel, the federal Boreal Caribou Science Advisory Group for the Critical Habitat Science Review, Committee on the Status of Species at Risk in Ontario (COSSARO), the Lake Simcoe Science Advisory Committee, and the Ontario Far North Science Advisory Panel. In 2006-7, she served on the Endangered Species Act Review Advisory Panel for the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources through to the passage of a new Act in May 2007. Since 2009, she has served as co-chair of the Terrestrial Mammal Subcommittee of The Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC). Justina graduated from University of Florida with a Ph.D. in 1996; her dissertation subject was on the community ecology of forest carnivores in Central Africa. She has authored or co-authored more than thirty book chapter, journal, or popular articles, and is lead editor of the book Large Carnivores and the Conservation of Biodiversity (Island Press; March, 2005), co-editor of Noninvasive Survey Techniques for North American Carnivores (Island Press, 2008), and co-author of Caribou and the North: A Shared Future (Dundurn Press, 2008). She is Adjunct Professor at the University of Toronto (Faculty of Forestry) and Trent University (Biology Department), and Research Associate at the Center for Biodiversity and Conservation Biology at the Royal Ontario Museum. She is co-chair of the Board of Directors of Two Countries, One Forest (a Northern Appalachians conservation network).
Biz Agnew
Director of Philanthropy, WCS Canada
As the Director of Philanthropy, Biz leads fundraising and development for WCS Canada. Biz joined WCS Canada in December 2007. Prior to arriving at WCS Canada in 2007, she worked at Nature Conservancy Canada (NCC) as Director of US Programmes and at WWF Canada focusing on several conservation portfolios: Eastern Arctic marine mammals, Canadian Prairie wildlife, WWF Canadian endangered species and the Latin American Programme focussing on Central America, Brazil, Guyana and Cuba. Biz has a BA from Queen’s University at Kingston and a Masters of Environmental Studies (Biological Conservation) from York University, Toronto.
Bryan Aber
Carnivore Conservation Specialist
Involved with WCS wolverine program since 2000, Bryan is currently filling a collaborative carnivore biologist position between WCS, Idaho Fish & Game and the Caribou-Targhee National Forest. Bryan was previously employed by the Caribou-Targhee National Forest as the District Biologist for the Ashton/Island Park Ranger District. He has a 27-plus year tenure with the US Forest Service. Bryan grew up in the Catskill Mountains of New York, but has lived in the Yellowstone Ecosystem since 1981.
Carrianne Pershyn
Adirondack Administrative Assistant
Carrianne is the current Office Manager for the WCS Adirondack Program and provides administrative support to staff. She assists with coordinating fundraising efforts, grant seeking, and programmatic events. Carrianne has provided support for climate change outreach events and the Annual Loon Census. In order to educate the US Military about illegal wildlife trade, Carrianne has helped develop education and outreach materials warning against purchasing illegal wildlife products while military personnel are stationed overseas in Afghanistan and Iraq. Carrianne holds a Bachelors Degree in Ecology from SUNY Plattsburgh. Since joining WCS in 2008, Carrianne has also worked as a field researcher on the Black Bear Education, Awareness, and Research Program and has assisted field studies of the effects of exurban development on wildlife and vegetation.
Cheryl Chetkiewicz
Ontario Northern Boreal Landscape Leader
Cheryl is the leader for Ontario's Northern Boreal Landscape at WCS Canada, applying her experience in academia, field based research and varied partnerships with First Nations, Government and NGOs to help develop tools to support regional and community-based conservation planning in Ontario’s Northern Boreal landscape. Cheryl’s research is focused on developing a monitoring program to assess thresholds for key wildlife species and ecological processes under strain from resource extraction and climate change in the boreal. Cheryl joined WCS in 1998 as a Policy Analyst at WCS headquarters in New York and later became a Program Officer. Building on her experience at WCS, Cheryl completed her PhD working on identifying and designing local wildlife corridors for cougars and grizzly bears within two key areas of the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative, Canmore and the Crowsnest Pass. This research has guided the application of land-use planning within increasingly fragmented habitats outside of protected areas.
Christopher Andrews
Conservation Intern
As Conservation Intern Christopher is responsible for administering the W. Garfield Weston Fellowship Program and providing support to our conservation programs. Christopher completed his MSc at Dalhousie University's agricultural campus in Truro, N.S. His research examined the landscape characteristics that affect the growth rate of native pollinators, within the context of lowbush blueberry farms. During his studies, he has collaborated with landowners, civil servants, and stakeholder interest groups to help inform sustainable land use decisions. He continues to expand upon a working knowledge of the spatial (ArcGIS) and statistical analysis (R, Minitab, SAS) programs that have enabled his work. He is also a practised and passionate science communicator, having won several awards for effectively communicating his work including an ESRI GIS award, and as a finalist in Dalhousie’s Three Minute Thesis competition.
Connie O'Connor
Associate Conservation Scientist
As Freshwater Conservation Scientist with WCS Connie leads the Ontario's Northern Boreal Landscape Freshwater Program. With a lifelong passion for fish and freshwater ecosystems Connie completed her PhD at Carleton University, where she used advanced telemetry and field physiology techniques to study how environmental stressors impact fish in eastern Ontario. Next Connie completed a postdoctoral fellowship at McMaster University, where she researched the ecology and evolution of cichlid fishes in eastern Africa. Connie’s research has greatly contributed to the developing field of ‘conservation physiology’, and she was awarded the prestigious Alice Wilson Medal from the Royal Society of Canada in 2013. In addition to a successful research career, Connie is a leader in science communication, outreach, and student mentorship.
Cori Lausen
Associate Conservation Scientist
Cori Lausen joined WCS Canada in 2011 as part of her NSERC Industrial Research and Development Fellowship, investigating winter bat activity and hibernation in western Canada. Cori completed her PhD in Ecology at the University of Calgary in 2007. Both her Masters and PhD research were on bats, with the former focussing on behaviour and physiology, and the latter on landscape genetics. Since 2007, she has taught bat acoustics courses, completed several independent research projects, and remained active in the field both summer and winter, surveying bat diversity in unsampled areas of NW North America.
Darren Long
Progam Director, Climate Adaptation Fund
As Director of the Climate Adaptation Fund at the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), Darren is responsible for all management, administration, communications and grantmaking activities for a program which has invested more than $10 million to support nonprofit conservation organizations working to implement applied on-the-ground climate adaptation projects. The Fund is designed to promote the resilience of ecosystems and wildlife to climate change impacts, incentivize the development of a new field of conservation for wildlife adaptation, and to catalyze broad integration of adaptation principles amongst public management agencies and nonprofit conservation organizations. Before joining WCS in 2006, Darren spent four years at The Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation in Atlanta, Georgia, where his work focused on green space preservation and the expansion and improvement of urban parks through the Foundation’s Environmental Initiative. Also in Georgia, Darren served as the Program Associate for Habitat at the Turner Foundation. There, his principal focus was the funding of public policy advocacy, litigation and local grassroots efforts to preserve terrestrial and marine biodiversity through landscape-scale habitat protection. Prior to his work at the Turner Foundation, Darren studied social behavior and cognition with apes and monkeys while managing research, conservation and education programs for the Living Links Center - Emory University's institute for the study of human and ape evolution.
Donald Reid
Northern Boreal Mountains Landscape Leader
As a Conservation Zoologist with the WCS Canada, Don leads conservation research and planning projects in theYukon and northern British Columbia. His primary research interests are in the spatial and temporal dimensions of ecosystem dynamics, and how these affect conservation needs, opportunities and planning. Since 2006 Don has been a lead scientist on an International Polar Year study of the terrestrial tundra food web in northern Yukon, with central focus on the trophic interactions of lemmings and their predators. He has also led a team of biologists in gathering and interpreting ecosystem and wildlife habitat data for a strategic land use plan in the Peel Watershed of northern Yukon. This planning process has produced recommendations for substantial new protected areas, and is now undergoing political review. His focus is shifting to conservation issues in the Northern Boreal Mountains, spanning northern British Columbia and southern Yukon. Large areas of wilderness with robust wildlife populations are at risk from new natural resource extraction projects, conversion of land to agriculture, and climate change. Don is leading work in this emerging WCS landscape, including forest resource planning, analysis of protected area options, and capacity building with First Nation governments. Don joined WCS Canada in 2004, based in Whitehorse, Yukon, when the Canada Country Program was getting started. He has helped establish the Country Program, including its strategic planning, and has assisted in the development of the North America Program’s strategic planning. His work in northwest Canada is now strengthened with the inclusion of Hilary Cooke as a research biologist based in Whitehorse. Don has advanced degrees in animal ecology: MSc (Calgary), PhD (British Columbia). His research background includes river otters, beavers, lynx and snowshoe hares in boreal Canada, giant pandas and Asiatic black bears in the eastern Himalaya of China, and lemmings, foxes and raptors on nearctic tundra. His conservation activities include analysis of wildlife habitat and distribution data for land use planning processes, management planning for protected areas, and integration of wildlife habitat needs in forest management.
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