A number of leading experts on Western conservation served as advisors to EcoWest and helped us develop the PowerPoint decks.

Jon Christensen

Jon Christensen is Adjunct Assistant Professor and Pritzker Fellow at the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability and Department of History at the University of California, Los Angeles. He was previously executive director of the Bill Lane Center for the American West at Stanford University and an environmental journalist and science writer for 20 years. His work has appeared in The New York Times, Nature, High Country News, and many other newspapers, magazines, journals, and radio and television shows. Jon was a Steinbeck Fellow at San Jose State University in 2003-2004, before returning to Stanford to work on a Ph.D. in History. His research and teaching interests include environmental history, natural history and the history of biological and ecological sciences, climate change, conservation, western history, and the history and current changes in media, information technologies, and journalism.

Robert Glennon

Robert Glennon is Regents’ Professor and the Morris K. Udall Professor of Law and Public Policy in the Rogers College of Law at the University of Arizona. Glennon has received two National Science Foundation grants and has served as an advisor to governments, law firms, corporations, and NGOs on water law and policy. He is also a regular commentator and analyst for various television and radio programs and for the print media. Glennon is the author of the highly acclaimed Water Follies: Groundwater Pumping and the Fate of America’s Fresh Waters (Island Press, 2002). His latest book, Unquenchable: America’s Water Crisis and What To Do About It, was published in April 2009. He has been a guest on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, The Diane Rehm Show, C-SPAN2′s Book TV, and numerous National Public Radio shows. Glennon received a J.D. from Boston College Law School and an M.A. and Ph.D. in American History from Brandeis University. He lives in Tucson, Arizona and is a member of the bars of Arizona and Massachusetts.

Bruce Hamilton

Bruce Hamilton is the Deputy Executive Director of the Sierra Club. He has worked for the Club for more than 35 years. He started as a regional Sierra Club organizer in the Northern Rocky Mountains and Northern Plains states, then served as National Field Director, and later as National Conservation Director. He has been involved in designing and implementing campaigns to promote Smart Energy Solutions, preserve America’s Wild Legacy, and support Safe Healthy Communities at the local, state, regional, federal, and international levels. He most recently developed the Club’s Natural Gas Reform Campaign and the Resilient Habitats Campaign, which has the goal of protecting native species and ecosystems from climate change. Hamilton served on the Environmental Support Center Board of Directors, the U.S. Department of Energy Environmental Advisory Board, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency National Advisory Council on Sustainable Economies. He is presently a member of the World Commission on Protected Areas. Prior to joining the Sierra Club staff he was the Field Editor of High Country News and was an environmental consultant drafting federal environmental impact statements. He received a B.S. summa cum laude in Wildlife Biology and Natural Resources Administration from Colorado State University in 1973. He lives in Berkeley, California.

Jonathan Hoekstra

Jon leads WWF’s Conservation Science Program, a team of 30 scientists and professionals that work with the more than 400 scientists across the WWF Network to provide cutting-edge research and technical assistance to WWF’s global conservation programs. Jon brings a unique perspective to WWF’s science program from his career experience with NGOs, government agencies, and higher education. He served as Senior Scientist at The Nature Conservancy (TNC), was Science Director for TNC’s Washington State Chapter, and has worked with the federal government at the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service. Jon holds a B.S. and M.S. in biological sciences from Stanford University and a Ph.D. in zoology from the University of Washington where he now maintains a faculty appointment. He lives in Seattle, Washington.

Timothy Male

Timothy Male is Vice President of Conservation Policy for Defenders of Wildlife. He directs a number of Defenders’ conservation policy programs, including Habitat and Highways, Conservation Planning, Federal Lands, Oregon Biodiversity Partnership, and Economics. Male is an expert in biodiversity conservation, private land incentives, agriculture policy, the Endangered Species Act, and land conservation. Before joining Defenders of Wildlife, Tim was Director of Wildlife and Habitat Conservation for the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and senior ecologist for the Environmental Defense Fund. He has also worked for the state of Hawaii on endangered species conservation on private lands. Tim graduated with a B.S. degree and double major in Biology and Environmental Studies from Yale University in 1992. He earned a Ph.D. in Conservation Biology from the University of Hawaii. He has been both a Fulbright Fellow (Australia, 1998) and German Marshall Fund Fellow (2010).

Thomas Swetnam

Thomas Swetnam, a Regents’ Professor of Dendrochronology and the Director of the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research at the University of Arizona, is a leading expert on wildfires and Western forests. The son of a Forest Service ranger, Swetnam worked as a wildland firefighter in New Mexico’s Gila Wilderness. He has authored and co-authored approximately 90 scientific papers in journals and symposium proceedings, including seminal papers in Science and other publications on wildfires, forest disturbance, and climate change. Swetnam received his bachelor’s degree in general biology and chemistry from the University of New Mexico and earned his master’s and Ph.D. from the University of Arizona in watershed management and dendrochronology. He has received the A.E. Douglass Award from the University of Arizona, the W.S. Cooper Award from the Ecological Society of America, and the Henry Cowles award from the American Association of Geographers. He lives in Tucson, Arizona.