Advisory Committee

Bryan Bedrosian

Brian Bedrosian

Bryan was born and raised just outside of Chicago, but moved up to Wisconsin to attend the University of Wisconsin – Stevens Point, where he began his interest in studying birds. While obtaining his undergraduate degree in Biology, he was always either researching raptors or fishing. After finishing, he and his wife, Emily, moved to Jackson Hole to work for the Teton Science Schools. Bryan quickly began volunteering with Craighead Beringia South finding raptor and raven nests and assisting with Red-tailed Hawk trapping for the satellite migration study. Working with CBS, Bryan continued his education at Arkansas State University and earned his master's degree in 2004 by studying the raven population of Jackson Hole. He has since continued working with CBS and is now Project Manager for the Avian Programs.

Doug Brimeyer

Doug Brimeyer

Doug grew up on a farm in Northeast Iowa near the Upper Mississippi National Wildlife Refuge. He moved to Missoula, Montana in 1988 where he attended the University of Montana. In 1991, Doug received a Bachelor's degree in Wildlife Biology. Soon after receiving his degree, Doug began working for the Wyoming Game & Fish Department as a Habitat Project Biologist in Jackson, where he worked with the Forest Service to improve big game winter ranges along the Gros Ventre River. He also worked for the Department in Cheyenne and Newcastle before returning to Jackson as a Wildlife Biologist. While Doug manages a variety of big and trophy game, his primary focus is managing elk, moose and bighorn sheep in Jackson Hole and on the west side of the Teton Mountains. He spends his free time hunting, fishing and camping with his family in northwest Wyoming.

Amy Collett

Amy Collett

Amy has a Bachelor’s Degree in Wildlife Biology and Management from the University of Wyoming. She started her career spraying and mapping noxious weeds in Grand Teton National Park. Most of her past work experience however, has been in outdoor education. She worked as a naturalist in the Ohio State Parks, an Interpretative Park Ranger in Yellowstone National Park, education specialist for the Wyoming Game and Fish, wildlife guide for the Teton Science Schools’ Wildlife Expeditions, and her current position as education coordinator for the Teton County Weed and Pest. She loves working with the public, helping them to understand the dynamics of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. Amy also takes passion in leading the Teton County Wildlife and Habitat 4H club.

Aly Courtemanch

Aly Courtemanch

Aly Courtemanch is the Habitat Biologist for the Jackson Region of the Wyoming Game & Fish Department. She is also currently working on completing her M.S. at the Wyoming Cooperative Fish & Wildlife Research Unit at the University of Wyoming, studying bighorn sheep seasonal habitat selection and impacts from winter backcountry recreation in the Teton Range. For the past 3 years, she has been coordinating this project with Grand Teton National Park, the Wyoming Game & Fish Department, Bridger-Teton National Forest and Caribou-Targhee National Forest. She grew up in central Maine and earned a B.S. degree from St. Lawrence University in Biology and Environmental Studies. While a student, she studied abroad in Kenya and later returned to conduct research on land cover change after livestock exclusion on a Maasai group ranch. She has contributed to rainforest mammal research in Panama and worked for several years in the Jackson area as a seasonal technician for Grand Teton National Park, the Wyoming Game & Fish Department and Craighead Beringia South with bison, black bears, elk, raptors and sage grouse. In her free time, Aly enjoys traveling, Nordic skiing, rock climbing and backcountry skiing with her partner, Forest.

Sarah Dewey

Mark Gocke

Mark Gocke

Mark fueled his interest in the outdoors as a youngster hunting and trapping along the banks of Beaver Creek in eastern Nebraska. After obtaining a Bachelor's degree in Wildlife Management from the University of Nebraska, he accepted a position as a Habitat Biologist with the Wyoming Game and Fish Department. In 1995, after stints in Wheatland and Sheridan, Mark moved into his current position with the Department as an Information and Education Specialist for the Jackson and Pinedale Regions. Mark enjoys wildlife photography and spending time outdoors with his wife, Lisa, and two children, Jonah and Emilie.

Embere Hall

Embere Hall

Embere received an M.S. in Ecology & Evolutionary Biology from Iowa State University and a B.S., Wildlife Ecology & Management/ Spanish from the University of Wisconsin, Stevens Point. In December of 2005, Embere joined Teton Science Schools' Conservation Research Center. She has a broad background in wildlife science. Recent projects include work on songbird demography, ecological thresholds, climate modeling and pika populations. Embere’s training is in ecology, quantitative biology and wildlife management. Additional research experience includes ungulate monitoring projects, songbird nest survival studies and snake population modeling.

Lori Iverson

Lori leads the Public Use program on the National Elk Refuge. Long ago and far away, Lori earned a degree in Education from Michigan's Alma College. She enjoyed a 20-year teaching career, pairing her education profession with eight years of National Park Service seasonal work. She moved to Jackson, Wyoming in 1998, and in 2000 left full-time teaching to accept a permanent government position in Grand Teton National Park. There, Lori utilized her teaching experience by working as the area's first full-time fire education specialist. She joined the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service in June 2005 to oversee public use, visitor services, and public affairs on the National Elk Refuge. Lori resides in Jackson, Wyoming with her charming better half, Chris, who is a climbing ranger in Grand Teton National Park.

Steve Kilpatrick, Board Chair

Steve Kilpatrick

Steve is the Contract Director for the Conservation Research Center of the Teton Science Schools. He recently retired as the Habitat Biologist/Coordinator in the Jackson/Afton region for the Wyoming Game and Fish Department after a 33 year career. He was born and raised on a farm/ranch in Nebraska and received a B.S. in Biology and an M.S. in Wildlife Management from the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. He worked as a big game and wetland habitat manager for the Wyoming Game and Fish Department in eastern Wyoming from 1978-1985. In 1986 he was transferred to the Jackson area where his primary focus areas are big game habitat related research, enhancement of big game winter ranges through the use of prescribed fire, maintaining/improving habitat effectiveness and general moose management. Steve was also involved with cooperative research projects on moose, elk and bighorn sheep in the Jackson area. He endeavors to bring folks of different backgrounds together and agree on common conservation and wildlife values.

Susan Marsh

Susan Marsh

Susan Marsh has lived in Jackson since 1988. She worked as the recreation and wilderness staff officer for the Bridger-Teton National Forest until retiring in 2010. She has degrees in geology and landscape architecture. In addition to serving on the Nature Mapping advisory board, she served on the Teton County Pathways task force for about 10 years and the board of the Jackson Hole Wildlife Foundation for 13 years. She is active in the local bird club, Jackson Hole Writers Conference, and the Teton County chapter of the Wyoming Native Plant Society.

Kelly McCloskey

Kelly is the Vegetation Program Manager for Grand Teton National Park and the Co-President of the Jackson Hole Wildlife Foundation. After completing a bachelor’s degree in Geology at Brown University she was a park ranger in seven parks, including Rocky Mountain, Grand Canyon and Yosemite. In 1993 she left the park service and moved to Jackson, where she began research on aspen regeneration, then attended graduate school at Utah State University where her aspen work became a Master’s thesis. Kelly went on to receive a PhD from Utah State studying vegetation dynamics in the shrub-steppe, aspen, and conifer interface in southern Grand Teton National Park. She returned to work with the NPS in 2000. As the park’s vegetation ecologist she is engaged in vegetation mapping and monitoring, noxious weed management, shrub-steppe, whitebark pine, and wetland restoration projects and increasing awareness of the impact of human activities on vegetation.

Kerry Murphy

Kerry received this Bachelor and Master of Science Degrees in Wildlife Biology at the University of Montana in 1980 and 1983, respectively, and his Ph.D. at the University of Idaho in Forestry, Range, and Wildlife Science in 1998. His Ph.D. focused on the ecology of cougars in Yellowstone National Park, including their predation on ungulates, and their interactions with other carnivores and humans. Kerry has worked with a variety of state, tribal, and federal agencies as a technician and wildlife biologist, and with numerous large and medium-sized carnivores in both a research and management context, including black bears, bobcats, Canada lynx, wolverines, and gray wolves. Kerry served as an endangered species and mid-sized carnivore biologist with the National Park Service, Yellowstone National Park, from 1998 to 2009. Currently, Kerry is a wildlife biologist employed by the Bridger-Teton National Forest in Jackson, Wyoming. In addition to the ecology of carnivores, Kerry has a broad interest in wildlife population and habitat management.

Susan Patla

Susan Patla

Susan works as the nongame biologist in the Jackson/Pinedale Region for Wyoming Game and Fish Department, a position she has held since 1999. As such, she is responsible for monitoring and managing regional populations of bald eagle, trumpeter swan, peregrine falcon, and other nongame bird and mammals species of conservation concern. Susan earned a B.A. from University of Michigan, and an M.S. degree from Idaho State for which she conducted a 5 year study of Northern Goshawk ecology on the Caribou-Targhee National Forest. She has also worked for the US Fish and Wildlife Service in Alaska, and as trip naturalist on bike and sailing trips in the western US and Baja California. She currently serves as chair of the Wyoming Bird Record Committee. Bird watching has been and remains one of her favorite past-times, and she believes that everyone’s life could be enriched by getting to know some of the birds that share our world.

Howard Quigley

Howard Quigley

Howard obtained his B.S. from the University of California at Berkeley, his M.S. from the University of Tennessee, and his PhD from the University of Idaho. He is Director of Western Hemisphere Programs for Panthera and a Senior Ecologist at Craighead Beringia South. He is Principal Investigator of the Teton Cougar Project, a research effort that is now in its 10th year in Jackson Hole. He is the author of more than 30 scientific publications and popular articles. His work with carnivores has included field studies of the giant panda in China, jaguars in the Brazilian Pantanal, and Siberian tigers in the Russian Far East.

Bert Raynes

Bert Raynes

Bert Raynes started life as an infant and grew to college age in Jersey City, New Jersey, back in the day. At that stage, a tabula rosa, he escaped to college, graduated as a chemical engineer, and married Meg. He worked in research and development of varied kinds, including water pollution control and became a conservationist on the side. Meg and he discovered birds and biology. Upon retirement, Raynes wrote bird books, a weekly nature newspaper column, and got to know wildlife biologists. He tries to learn about natural history then inform others. He is available by appointment.

Renee Seidler

Renee Seidler

Renee is originally from the Pacific Northwest. She received her B.S. in Molecular and Microbiology from Arizona State University and her M.S. in Wildlife Biology from Utah State University. She began working with the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) in 2003 and helped to launch their Wildlife and Energy Development project in the Upper Green River Basin, WY, in 2005. She has conducted behavioral and ecological research on coyotes, wolves, moose, pronghorn, and small mammals in Montana, Wyoming, and Colorado. She has also contributed field time to tropical bird research in Panama and hyena research in Kenya. Renee's area of expertise is in field design and research. She is currently the pronghorn project Field Leader for WCS. In their spare time, she and her partner David enjoy skiing, boating, cycling, and hiking with their dogs Nova and Luna.

Megan Smith

Megan Smith

Megan grew on the coast of Maine where her love of wildlife and the outdoors began. She received a B.A. from Middlebury College in Environmental Studies and an M.S. in Conservation Biology from Antioch University New England. As Project Coordinator for Nature Mapping, she enjoys combining her early career in outdoor education with ecological research to focus on applied conservation projects as well as training and educating citizen science volunteers. Her research experience has focused on bird studies in both New England and the Rockies and habitat assessments throughout western Wyoming. In addition to research, Megan enjoys spending time in the outdoors skiing, hiking, sailing and watching wildlife.