SCCS-NY 2023 Plenaries

Nyeema C. Harris is a wildlife biologist and applied ecologist. Her Applied Wildlife Ecology Lab (“AWE”) at the Yale School of the Environment examines human-wildlife interactions and conflict mitigation with carnivores, with a focus on practical conservation and management through a cross-disciplinary lens. Her work spans urban environments, the tropics, and protected areas, while always centering the co-creation and integration of local knowledge and interests. Dr. Harris’ current research explores carnivore behavior and movement, ecology and conservation in urban systems and national parks throughout the Americas and Africa, with current projects in Senegal, Mexico, Burkina Faso, and India. Implementing inclusive scholarship is a cornerstone of Dr. Harris’ ethos; her lab grounds and celebrates justice, equity, diversity, and public engagement in their pursuit of wildlife persistence and coexistence.

Dr. Harris has a bachelor’s degree in wildlife biology from Virginia Tech, a master’s in wildlife biology from the University of Montana, and a PhD in fisheries, wildlife, and conservation biology from North Carolina State University. She's worked for the US Fish &Wildlife Service, US Forest Service, and WWF International. She joined the faculty at Yale’s School of the Environment in 2021 as the Knobloch Family Associate Professor of Wildlife and Land Conservation teaching courses in wildlife movement ecology and global human-wildlife interactions.

More information about Dr. Harris’ recent work can be found at:

• Cities build better biologists
• First camera survey in Burkina Faso and Niger reveals human pressures on mammal communities within the largest protected area complex in West Africa
• Hidden figures in ecology and evolution
• Inclusive sustainability approaches in common-pool resources from the perspective of blackologists
• Responsibility, equity, justice, and inclusion in dynamic human–wildlife interactions
• Socio-ecological gap analysis to forecast species range contractions for conservation
• What's going to be on the menu with global environmental changes?

Ingrid Haeckel is currently Conservation and Land Use Specialist with the Hudson River Estuary Program, a program of the New York State Department of Conservation (@NYSDEC) in partnership with Cornell University. She works with municipal and regional partners to integrate biodiversity conservation into community planning and land use policy. Ingrid began her career at Hudsonia Ltd., where she worked on a variety of biodiversity mapping and habitat assessment projects. Ingrid earned her MA degree in Geography with an emphasis in ethnobotany at the University of Texas at Austin. She was an award-winning presenter at the very first SCCS-NY in 2010!

Ashik Rahaman is a Research Analyst at Cornell University’s K. Lisa Yang Center for Conservation Bioacoustics (@CornellSounds). He focuses on large-scale data analysis and integration of technological advancements in conservation, and currently works on acoustic monitoring of right whales in Massachusetts Bay. Ashik also coordinates education and outreach efforts to communicate research findings to a wide range of stakeholder groups. Learn more about Ashik.

Hara Woltz is an artist and scientist who addresses the destruction and conservation of ecological systems through visual media. Field research is integral to the creation of her work, and her solo and collaborative projects investigate the relationships between humans, the environment, and other living organisms. Hara has worked on a number of global ecological and design projects, including habitat restoration for native species in New Zealand, giant tortoise and Waved Albatross habitat assessment and restoration in Galápagos, Ecuador, and collaborated with @CBC_AMNH on biological and cultural resilience programs in Solomon Islands, Melanesia. Learn more about Hara. 

Mary E. Blair, Ph.D. is the Director of Biodiversity Informatics Research at the Center for Biodiversity and Conservation at the American Museum of Natural History. She studies the conservation biology of primates and other mammals, and has more than 15 years of field research experience in Latin America and Asia, studying the evolutionary processes that generate biodiversity to inform the spatial prioritization of conservation actions, including under climate change. Her research integrates spatial modeling and molecular genetics alongside knowledge from diverse sources and perspectives in a biocultural conservation framework, which explicitly starts with and builds upon local and Indigenous values, knowledge, and needs while recognizing the interplay between the cultural and biological parts of a system. Learn more about Mary.