People Type: Staff

Isadora is Colombian by origin and joined the Manomet team in May 2018. She is in charge of promoting the incorporation of shorebirds within national conservation agendas, assessing the uses of resources at WHSRN sites, and building the capacity of partners in ecosystem service assessments. Isadora has been working on the conservation of birds in Colombia and throughout the Western Hemisphere for over 15 years.

Isadora gained her conservation experience through working on research in the field and through engaging with communities in her native Colombia as part of Asociacion Calidris, moving later to Southeast Asia to work in conservation of endangered and traded species. Before joining Manomet Isadora worked since 2011 for the BirdLife International Americas Secretariat as the Americas Flyways Coordinator, including representing BirdLife on the WHSRN Hemispheric Council. At BirdLife she supported the development of conservation programs for grassland birds and migratory birds including globally threatened migratory birds, she also developed and help build BirdLife Partners’ capacities on ecosystem services assessments at site scale.

Isadora is a biologist with a major in ornithology from Universidad del Valle in Colombia, completed a Diploma in Endangered Species Management at the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust, and University of Kent (UK) and holds a Master in Conservation Leadership from the University of Cambridge (UK).

Why Manomet?

I am proud of being part of the Manomet team as I believe biodiversity conservation depends on multidimensional approaches, and Manomet is a place where such approaches are developed.  The approaches for biodiversity conservation that Manomet develops have their bases on the best science, research effort, community engagement, land management, and land use planning, and strategic partnerships. What conservationist would not want to be part of such an extraordinary team and organization?

“I work at Manomet because – at the end of the day – to conserve our natural resources and biodiversity in the Americas, we need to develop collaborative processes, build partnerships, and reach agreements. At Manomet, we are building the science, the relationships, and the dialogue needed to achieve this.”

Conserving shorebird habitat also means ensuring the health of the human environment we live in, and good governance might be the most important factor to reach the goals of sustainable development. From his office in Santiago, Chile, Diego has been leading various collaborative processes since 2009 – through building dialogues, alliances, and connections that support the conservation of sites in the Western Hemisphere Shorebird Reserve Network (WHSRN), from the Arctic to Patagonia. These processes involve the participation of communities, NGOs, decision makers, public and private sectors, universities and research institutions. In the equation of good governance, no one is superfluous.

Diego has vast experience conducting conservation processes, managing multilateral projects, plans, and conservation strategies (local, national, and international), building capacities, facilitating the exchange of experiences and networking between WHSRN sites. His experience in dialogue and governance ranges from themes of biodiversity conservation to social-environmental conflicts, energy, and climate change.

Diego was born in Montevideo, Uruguay, but has lived in Chile for 22 years. Before starting with the WHSRN Executive Office, Diego led the process to nominate Bahía Lomas (in Tierra del Fuego, Chile) as a WHSRN site – the most important wintering site in all of South America for the threatened Red Knot, and the first WHSRN site in Chile.

Other highlights on Diego’s professional path have been positions such as researcher for the program “Conflict and Collaboration for Natural Resource Management in Latin America and the Caribbean,” with University for Peace, Project Director for the Fundación Futuro Latinoamericano (Latin American Future Foundation), Chile Country Project Manager for the Climate and Development Knowledge Network (CDKN), and former advisor to the National Petroleum Company of Chile, for their Environment and Corporate Legal Affairs departments.

Manomet brings together people from across the entire hemisphere for conservation and has an incredible legacy of working with sound science and dedicated people to make a difference. Addressing the challenges that shorebirds face necessitates this wide-ranging, multi-faceted approach, and I’m working with Manomet because I believe that in being a part of this team, I can help make a difference.

The Georgia Bight is a region with incredible habitat for shorebirds throughout the year, ranging from expansive marshes, mudflats, and sand bars, to undeveloped barrier island beaches which provide sites for nesting, feeding, and roosting. By working with the stakeholders actively involved in shorebird conservation, identifying research and management objectives, building education and outreach efforts, and increasing partnerships, we will achieve measurable progress for shorebirds along the South Carolina, Georgia and Northern Florida coasts.

I earned my doctorate from the University of Georgia, where I studied how habitat and landscape features influence beach nesting shorebirds and chick survival. Prior to my degree, I lived on Little St. Simons Island in Georgia, where I worked as a naturalist guide and assisted on a variety of environmental projects, educated visitors about coastal ecology, and explored the Southeastern coast. Before migrating south, I grew up in Western New York and attended SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry for my B.S. in environmental biology.

When I’m not birding or working, I enjoy spending time with friends and family, going on adventures, learning new things, and snuggling my dog, Baxley.

Brad Winn is Vice President, Resilient Habitats and is committed to working with a wide range of individuals and organizations to implement conservation projects.

Brad joined Manomet in 2011 to work toward Western Hemisphere shorebird population recovery, including teaching shorebird ecology and management workshops, coordinating the International Shorebird Survey, contributing to the development of the Atlantic Flyway Shorebird Business Strategy, and performing field studies including Arctic Shorebird Demographics Network, Red Knot population estimates, and Whimbrel migration ecology.

From my first two-year stint at the (then) Manomet Bird Observatory in the 1970’s, I was immensely comfortable with the wide range of scientific work we do and the emphasis on conservation biology. Over the years, our long-term data and the ecological studies they inform have led to an ideal combination of research, conservation science, and education at all levels. Science is not a goal in itself, but at Manomet, it leads to communicating our results directly through teaching, publication, and the current media. This philosophy is supported by unified staff, boards, and members, so “Why not Manomet?”

Manomet is a science-based organization that allows us to engage any audience with the facts about conservation biology. Our bird research uses changes in migration ecology to showcase birds as sensitive indicators of environmental change that alert us to both local and international conservation and climate change effects. We communicate these concepts through direct programs at the banding lab, lectures, publications, web sites and especially through providing curriculum and field techniques to teachers at middle and high school levels. A sustainable world requires that people understand the results of our actions, good and bad, plus everyone appreciates birds.

An initial Honours B.Sc. in Zoology from the University of Wales was supplemented by graduate courses in ecology from Boston University. Training in ornithology and field biology at Bird Observatories and the British Trust for Ornithology was supplemented in the USA by banding and census techniques and practical teaching at the undergraduate level at Manomet. Fieldwork from the Arctic to the New World tropics, Europe and Africa has broadened all aspects of my background.

Birds and the places they take you to, plus the people you meet along the way provide an endless fascination and endless learning opportunities. I still have the privilege of working with dedicated banders and interns, being directly involved in teaching, and continuing to learn about and appreciate birds.