Faculty & staff bibliographic sketches

Laura Lee Lienk

B.S. in Biology
College of William and Mary

M.S. in Science Education & Field Natural History
Cornell University

One of her current projects is the Return of the Natives Restoration Education Project, which provides learning experiences, research opportunities and community-based training projects for ESSP students as well as programs for K-12 schools, and restoration training for teachers. She also coordinates native plant restoration projects in the Salinas Valley, Moro Cojo Slough, and Fort Ord Public Lands.

As the Applied Science and Technology Service Learning Coordinator, Ms. Lienk develops opportunities for service learning through facilitating connections between the university and local agencies, schools and the general community. She also assists ESSP faculty in designing and selecting community partners for Service Learning classes.

Ms. Lienk has served with many state level committees on environmental education, and has directed educational programs, worked as a naturalist, and served with the Peace Corps in Argentina as a teacher/trainer in environmental education. She is also a contributing writer for the curriculum series, A Child's Place In The Environment. She has travelled extensively, studied gas exchange in termite mounds in Namibia, and food plant selection of golden marmots in the Himalayas. Some of her other interests include hiking, backpacking, cross country skiing, and gardening.

Fred Watson is Co-Director of the Watershed Institute, Assistant Professor in the Division of Science and Environmental Policy, and leader of the Central Coast Watershed Studies team at CSUMB. He divides his time between teaching watershed, modeling, and research courses and grant-based research funded by federal, state, local, and private agencies. Formally educated in geography, computer science, and environmental engineering, Fred's current work encompasses a range of fields including water quality, snowpack modeling, remote sensing, aquatic ecology, software development, computer animation, and interpretive video production. The common thread link these is Fred's goal to better understand and communicate the functioning of environmental systems within the context of human use of the environment.

Dr. Watson's Homepage

Fred Watson (PhD)

Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering
University of Melborne, Australia

Doug Smith (PhD)

Ph.D. in Geology
Univerisity of California, Santa Barbara

Dr. Douglas Smith is an Associate Professor in the Earth Systems Science & Policy Institute at CSU Monterey Bay. Dr. Smith brings a diverse research and teaching background in geology, watershed/river restoration technology, tectonics, and sedimentology. His prior positions include Research Assistant Professor of Geology at Vanderbilt University and Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Field Biology of Austin Peay State University. Dr. Smith has worked closely with the U.S.E.P.A. on watershed management issues in the southeastern U.S. and has completed watershed and river restoration projects for the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation and the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency. He currently serves on the Advisory Board for the Watershed Institute at CSU Monterey Bay. He has also led workshops on applied fluvial geomorphology for state agency environmental managers. In addition to watershed-related projects, Dr. Smith maintains a collaborative, NSF-funded research program studying the Mesozoic to Recent tectonic evolution of the western edge of North America. That research program focuses on rocks in western-central Baja California, Mexico. Dr. Smith will teach courses in geology, surface and groundwater hydrology, and watershed restoration.

Dr. Smith is currently involved in the Watershed and Riparian Assessment Report (WRAR). WRAR is a procedure to characterize the dominant physical, ecological, and cultural components of a landscape using natural hydrologic boundaries to define the limits of the study area.

Dr. Smith's Homepage

Marc Los Huertos (PhD)

PhD University of California Santa Cruz

Suzy Worcester (PhD)

PhD in ....

Dr. Robert Curry is an Adjunct Professor of Watershed Systems Science for the Earth Systems Science & Policy Institute at CSU Monterey Bay and Emeritus Professor of Environmental Geology for the University of California at Santa Cruz. Dr. Curry brings a most impressive set of management, research and teaching skills to ESSP in the fields of watershed systems science, geology, and soil systems science. He has served as science advisor to the US Senate Public Works Committee and presidential offices, and has conducted world-wide research on climate change, paleopedology (history of soils), and wetlands restoration. He recently completed a project for the Chilean government, assessing the need for alteration and/or elimination of dams to maximize environmentally sustainable river system usage, and is currently evaluating the effects of logging on agronomic systems in the Rio Grande Valley of the southwestern United States. Dr. Curry teaches or co-teaches classes in watershed systems science, soil science, hydrological systems, and geology/hydrology, as well as a wide variety of short courses for agencies and organizations seeking systems approaches to land use problems. As Director of the Watershed Institute, he arranges student internships and other opportunities for student participation with state, federal, local, environmental and community agencies and organizations.

Bob Curry (PhD)

M.S. in Geology
University of Colorado

M.S. in Plant Ecology
University of Colorado

Ph.D. in Geology / Geophysics
UC Berkeley

Lars Pierce (PhD)

Ph.D. in Forest Ecology
Univerisity of Montana

Dr. Lars Pierce is Adjunct Faculty in the Division of Science and Environmental Policy at CSU Monterey Bay. He brings to the ESSP Program teaching and research experience in the integration of geographic information systems (GIS), remote sensing, and ecosystem process measurement and modeling to address ecological interactions at a variety of space and time scales. Dr. Pierce has been a NASA Global Change Research Fellow, a visiting scholar at the NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California and at the CSIRO Division of Water Resources in Canberra, Australia, and a research associate in the Department of Biological Sciences at Stanford University. Currently, his teaching and research interests are focused on the use of computer modeling, remote sensing, and GIS to examine the interplay between regional land use change and global environmental change on water resources.

Christina has worked with the Watershed Institute's Return of the Natives Restoration Education Project since 1999 as the Greenhouse Coordinator and the Greenthumbs Volunteer Program Coordinator. Over the course of her work she has been involved in the propagation and outplanting of thousands of native plants.

Christina McKnew

Joel Casagrande

B.S.Earth Systems Science & Polcy
CSU Monterey Bay

Joel Casagrande is a CSUMB graduate (2001), with a degree in Watershed Systems of the Earth Systems Science and Policy Department. His senior project, or Capstone, was a study on the affects of landuse on sediment loads in Gabilan Creek; a heavily impacted stream that runs through the city of Salinas.

Currently, Joel is a full-time research technician for the Central Coast Watershed Studies (CCoWS) at the Watershed Institute. Within CCoWS, Joel is involved in a variety of projects within the Salinas Valley. They include stream sediment load collection and analysis, lagoon monitoring, pesticide/nutrient collection and analysis, and most recently steelhead habitat mapping, reconnaissance and assessment in the Arroyo Seco Watershed. In addition to his work with CCoWS, Joel recently became involved as a field assistant in an ecosystem-modeling project in Yellowstone National Park.

My most recent accomplishment was the completion of a Bachelors of Science in Earth Systems Science & Policy through California State University Monterey Bay. Over the span of my course work I strived to integrate my knowledge of science and policy by working with local agencies to meet a 'real-world' need. I was able to achieve this goal by working with Return of the Natives Restoration Education Project (RON) at the Watershed Institute as a Weed Warrior and education outreach Intern. Currently I am the course instructor for ESSP 122 Integrated Physical Science at California State University Monterey Bay in the Earth Systems Science & Policy department. I also work as the web designer for the Watershed Institute.

I bring the elements of flexibility, curiosity, organization, and most of all enthusiasm to the Watershed Institute collective. In the future I see myself continuing to work on projects that require an integral understanding and application of scientific concepts and methods. I have a desire to continue working with other organizations that wish to integrate the science and policy behind their research into something that local and global communities feel that they can apply to their daily lives.

Home Page

ESSP 122 Integrated Physical Science

Jon Detka

B.S. Earth Systems Science & Polcy
CSU Monterey Bay

Thor Anderson

B.S.Earth Systems Science & Polcy
CSU Monterey Bay

Thor Anderson received his B.S. in Earth Systems Science and Policy (ESSP) from California State University of Monterey Bay (CSUMB) in 1999. His senior ESSP project was an interpretive trail guide for a vernal pool ecosystem on the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Fort Ord Public Lands. 1999 he also had internship with Watershed Institute and the BLM as a "Weed Warrior." In early 2000 he became a Full-time staff research associate at the Watershed Institute. His current work includes managing field crews for water quality monitoring and wildland restoration, research technician for modeling ecosystems in Yellowstone National Park, and Part-time lecturer/field leader for the ESSP course California Transect. Thor's goals are to continue his work at the Watershed Institute and ESSP for many years to come and to obtain a Master's in Earth Systems Science and Policy along the way.

Wendi grew up in Los Angeles, California where she developed a sensitivity to the problems of urban development, water, and air quality. Wendi started her working career as an electronic maintenance technician and later Chief of Maintenance in sound recording facilities. She spent the last nine years of this career designing, building, and maintaining post-production sound editing bays for television. After many years of wanting to change career paths, she quit in 1992 to return to school. Wendi entered CSUMB in 1996 as an ESSP major, and her final thesis Pine Pitch Canker on the Monterey Peninsula earned honors at graduation in 1999.

Wendi currently is a staff research associate at the Watershed Institute, where her work includes mapping, remote sensing, and technical and administrative services. She has co-authored several reports: Big Sur Highway One Erosion and Revegetation Management (2000), Winter Water Quality of the Carmel and Salinas Lagoons, Monterey, California: 2000/2001; and The Salinas Sediment Study - the challenge of monitoring just about everything in a watershed where we know just about nothing: Poster presentation. 8th Biennial Watershed Management Council conference, November 2000.

Her personal scientific interests are in landscape and native plant ecology, landscape epidemiology, steelhead habitat and population, preservation of natural landscapes. Wendi's other interests include working on her house with her husband Richard, gardening, Great Danes and Great Dane rescue, and artfully fusing dichroic glass.

Wendi Newman

B.S.Earth Systems Science & Polcy
CSU Monterey Bay