Mary Whitfield, Research Director

Mary J. Whitfield is the research director at the Southern Sierra Research Station. She holds a B.S. degree in Wildlife and Fisheries Biology from U.C. Davis, and a M.S. degree in Biology from California State University, Chico. She has also taken post graduate classes at UCSB. She has over 25 years of fieldwork experience in the U.S. and has also worked in numerous Latin American countries. Mary has worked on a long-term breeding ecology study of the Southwestern Willow Flycatcher since 1989. Over the past several years, she expanded her Willow Flycatcher work to their wintering areas in Mexico, Central America and South America. She has been the research director of the Southern Sierra Research station since the station opened in 2000.

Kate Batdorf, Chief Operating Officer

Kate took the newly created position of COO of SSRS in 2022 after serving on the SSRS board of directors since 2016. She has an undergraduate degree in Environmental and Evolutionary Biology from Dartmouth College, and an MS in Wildlife Biology and Natural Resources from Ohio State University, where she co-managed the Ohio Breeding Bird Atlas project. Originally from the NYC area, she has lived in many places across the US working in avian biology and outdoor education. Before moving to the Kern River Valley, she worked for the USFWS in Pocatello, ID, studying waterfowl at the Minidoka National Wildlife Refuge. Before that she taught science and outdoor education in Yosemite National Park, developing climate change curriculum for the National Park Service. Kate lives in Kernville, CA with her husband and 4 kids, and in her free time she teaches yoga, volunteers for the local schools, and enjoys just about all types of adventuring outside, including trail running, mountain biking, backpacking, paddle boarding, back-country skiing, and getting out on the beautiful Kern River.

Nick Beauregard, Research Biologist, Arizona Lead

Nick is a research biologist with SSRS and coordinates Yellow-billed Cuckoo work in Arizona. He is also working to complete his PhD in Biology at Northern Arizona University, and his dissertation focuses on biogeography and distribution modeling of cuckoos in southeastern Arizona, as well as the development of methods for monitoring cuckoos using autonomous recording units. Originally from New England, Nick has been living and working as a field ornithologist in the west since 2011 and has worked with cuckoos in Arizona since 2015. He has also worked with Southwestern Willow Flycatchers, Mexican Spotted Owls, Yellow-eyed Juncos, and many other avian species. When he’s not working on cuckoo projects, Nick enjoys immersing himself in the biodiversity and vast backcountry of the southwest through backpacking, fly fishing, trail running, and boating. He is also an avid DIYer, and is handy with auto mechanics, off-grid living, landscaping and horticulture, and woodworking.

Michelle Johnson, Office Manager

Michelle has been our office manager since 2008 and comes to us with a diverse and unique background. She is a practicing nurse with expertise in acute care, skilled nursing, home health and Hospice care. She has also worked with developmentally disabled children and adults teaching them daily living skills. Michelle also loves animals; she has several dogs and cats, but her background suggests that she has a particular fondness for birds. In addition to her guineas, she has bred and hand-raised parrots for twenty-six years! It started as a hobby and turned into a successful business. However, raising parrots requires daily care and the desire for a little free time compelled her to reduce her parrot flock to one chatty Amazon parrot. Her hobbies include ceramics, plants, gardening, and bonsai.

Patrick D. Lorch, Senior Research Biologist, Motus Lead

Pat has an Undergrad degree in Biology from Notre Dame, a Masters in Zoology from University of Maryland, and a PhD. in Behavioral Ecology from University of Toronto, focusing on evolution of insect mating behavior, sexual selection, and life history evolution. After a decade doing academic research and teaching, that included radio tracking insects with the USDA, Pat moved to working at a large county-level park system managing permits, research, and monitoring. This is where he came into contact with the MOTUS wildlife tracking system(https://motus.org), setting up four stations to track migratory birds as they cross Lake Erie. Pat has tons of experience with field work, research and monitoring, data management, and analysis. At SSRS, he’s leading our MOTUS station projects, and will be assisting with data analysis as well as grant applications aimed at strengthening the role the station plays in regional conservation. Pat’s hobbies include hiking, camping, and river boating.

Annie Meyer, Lead Field Biologist & Research Associate

Annie has been conducting avian field research since 2009 and earned a B.S. in Wildlife at Humboldt State University in 2015. Over many years of field work she has predominantly worked in neotropical ecosystems, grasslands, and riparian habitats across the U.S. and in Costa Rica, Colombia, and Ecuador. Annie started birding at the age of 9 in Washington state, and this interest quickly developed into a passion for conservation. In her free time, she enjoys birding, naturalizing, traveling abroad, backpacking, doing most visual art forms and rock-hounding, among other things. She first worked for SSRS in New Mexico in 2021, and is now a full-time field biologist at the station.

Sasha Robinson, Field Biologist & Motus/Research Associate

Sasha grew up in Santa Cruz, California where early on he was instilled with a love for nature. After amassing field guides and acquiring his first binoculars around age 10, birds increasingly became the center of his focus. He earned a B.S. degree in Wildlife from Humboldt State University in 2016 and has since worked on a wide variety of avian field studies throughout the western hemisphere. Sasha first worked for SSRS in 2021 as a crew lead on the New Mexico Pinyon-Juniper birds project, and later was hired on to the Weldon field staff where he is currently involved with much of the field research there, particularly Motus. In addition to birding, he enjoys learning about, seeking, and documenting most other forms of biodiversity and traveling (especially to the neotropics) to do so. His other hobbies include outdoor sports (backpacking, trail running, fishing, etc.), reading, and music.

John Stanek, Senior Research Biologist, New Mexico Lead

John earned a B.S. in Natural Resource Management from Colorado State University in 1998, a B.S. in Biology from Western State College of Colorado in 2004, and an M.S. in Zoology from the University of Wyoming in 2008. For his master’s degree, John combined his love of birds and mountains to study Brown-capped Rosy-Finch habitat selection in the San Juan Mountains of Colorado. In addition to rosy-finch research, he has worked on Black Swifts, Flammulated Owls, Gunnison Sage-grouse, Painted Buntings, Red Crossbills, and desert riparian birds research projects. As a SSRS Wildlife Biologist, John primarily conducts research and data analysis for our Kern Valley and Lower Colorado River Yellow-billed Cuckoo projects. He also contributes to the station’s other research projects and website and database development. Prior to his career in wildlife biology, John worked for eight years as an outdoor educator teaching outdoor recreation and leadership skills to high school and college students across the Southwest.