As previously announced, the speaker for Friday night will be Dr. Ben Vernasco. Here is more information on Dr. Vernasco’s talk and his background:

Talk Description

The awe-inspiring mountains of the Western United States host many species of plants and animals found nowhere else in the world. Such alpine endemics have evolved unique adaptations to survive the challenges of the alpine. Many are also threatened by current and pending climate change, which is causing the decline and loss of permanent snow and ice in alpine ecosystems. Studying alpine species therefore presents unique opportunities to learn about how animals adapt to challenging environments and provides critical information related to the status and conservation of alpine species. In his talk, Dr. Vernasco will share his work on one group of alpine denizens, the North American Rosy-finches. Ben will first provide an ecological overview of the group and then share his research which uses genomic techniques to understand the ecology and promote the conservation of the subspecies of Gray-crowned Rosy-finch found in the nearby Wallowa Mountains.

Biography

Ben is originally from the North Bay Area and Sacramento. He received his undergraduate degree from the Wildlife Department at Cal Poly Humboldt in 2013, where he discovered his passion for birds through field trips with the Redwood Region Audubon Society and while volunteering at Humboldt Bay Bird Observatory. After a year of seasonal field jobs, Ben joined the Biology Department at Virginia Tech as a PhD student and the Interfaces of Global Change Interdisciplinary Graduate Education Program as a Fellow. There he studied the behavior of wire-tailed manakins in the Amazon Rainforest of NE Ecuador. After Virginia Tech, he worked with Dr. Heather Watts as a Postdoctoral Researcher in the School of Biological Sciences at Washington State University studying the migratory behavior of nomadic finches such as pine siskins and Red Crossbills. Currently, Ben is a Research Scientist and Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Biology at Whitman College and works with the USFS Pacific Northwest Research Station studying wildlife in the Blue Mountains using bioacoustics.