2026 Local Phenology Leader Virtual Conference

Dr. Kerissa Fuccillo Battle
New York Phenology Project

Kerissa Fuccillo Battle is a research ecologist and strategic advisor whose work is focused on catalyzing community science initiatives and building capacity for organizations in the field of science and education. She has worked as a collaborator with the USA-NPN since 2010 as a researcher, data end-user, Local Phenology Leader and project manager. She launched the New York Phenology Project in 2013, helping to establish group sites across the state and building online resources to support local and regional projects. A recent publication using USA-NPN’s volunteer-collected data comparing modern and historic phenology observations across two centuries in New York State can be found here.

Dr. Brittany Barker
Oregon State University

Brittany Barker is an Assistant Research Professor at the Oregon IPM Center and Department of Horticulture at Oregon State University. She develops ecological models that can help agricultural decision makers with managing and monitoring pests, their crop hosts, and their natural enemies. Her recent modeling work has focused on forecasting the phenology and potential distribution of invasive species in the U.S. to help managers understand when and where to conduct surveillance operations. Forecasts for several of these pests, including the emerald ash borer and spotted lanternfly, can be accessed here.

Dr. Cat Chamberlain
The Nature Conservancy

Cat Chamberlain is an ecologist and climate scientist at The Nature Conservancy and is based in Durham, NC. She previously studied late spring freezing events — also known as “false springs” — and the impacts on tree growth and growing season length. Cat worked with a citizen science group called the Tree Spotters, who inputted data into Nature’s Notebook. Cat used these observations to support her research on false springs.

Dr. Georgia Murray
Appalachian Mountain Club

Georgia Murray, Senior Scientist at the Appalachian Mountain Club has been engaged in phenology monitoring since 2004. She and her team use Nature’s Notebook (NN) to track understory plant and tree phenology in the Northern Appalachians. Her work also utilizes other NN datasets examining phenology along the Appalachian Trail.

Marianne Lancaster
The Nature Education Foundation

Marianne Lancaster is a retired biology teacher of 30 years. She has spent the past 4 years as the Nature Education Program Manager for The Nature Education Foundation at the Santa Rosa Plateau Ecological Reserve in Riverside County, California. She has utilized the Phenology program for high school student field trips at the Reserve and the program provides grants to the schools to pay for transportation costs. She has found that engaging teenagers in citizen science is rewarding!

Dr. Adam Wilson
University at Buffalo

Adam Wilson is an Associate Professor of Global Environmental Change at the University at Buffalo and is the Principal Investigator and Lead Scientist for the NASA BioSCape project. His research extensively utilizes remote sensing and modeling to understand ecosystem dynamics including phenology. He developed a phenology observation program at the University at Buffalo by incorporating citizen science observations of plant phenology into a large course that has recorded almost 500k observations since 2015.

Erin Wagner
McGregor High School

Erin Wagner is a middle school and high school life sciences teacher in rural Minnesota. She enjoys getting her students outside on a regular basis and is excited to share more with you!

Dr. Colleen Hitchcock
Brandeis University

Ava Goodale
Deerfield Academy

Sara Klingensmith 
Allegheny Land Trust

As Allegheny Land Trust’s Education Associate, Sara Klingensmith manages school and education partner relationships, outreach program coordination, and internal material supplies. Her background includes a B.S. in Wildlife Biology from the University of Alaska Fairbanks and about a decade of working as an environmental educator for non-profits. Sara has been participating in Nature’s Notebook for 5 years and recently became a Local Phenology Leader, establishing a local phenology program at Barking Slopes, New Kensington, Pennsylvania, in partnership with Mason Heberling, Associate Curator of Botany for the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. 

Dr. Claire O’Neill 
Earthwise Aware

Claire O’Neill is the founder and president of Earthwise Aware (EwA), where she leads a biodiversity and climate participatory science program that has generated more than one million ecological records in the Boston region and contributes long term datasets to the USA National Phenology Network. Trained in mathematical statistics, probability theory, and artificial intelligence, she develops field protocols and community programs that strengthen ecological monitoring and inform evidence-based conservation. Her work connects communities with local ecosystems and advances long-term ecological research through structured observations and collaborative science

Kathy McGlathery 
Earthwise Aware

Kathy McGlathery is an NPN Local Phenology Leader, volunteer and Advisor with Earthwise Aware (EwA), a Boston-area participatory biodiversity and climate science program which participates in USA National Phenology Network data collection. Kathy leads and mentors a team of citizen scientists and interns who monitor phenology and biodiversity, centered on three sites around a small pond in the Massachusetts' Middlesex Fells Reservation. Driven by her deep curiosity and respect for natural history, she is dedicated to sharing her awe for the interconnectedness of the area’s rich ecosystem, with the EwA community and visitors.

Christine Goforth 
North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences

Chris Goforth is Head of Collaborative Science at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, where her job is to connect North Carolinians statewide to scientific research they take part in as non-experts. Chris manages five citizen science projects, co-leads a statewide collaborative of environmental education centers aimed at broadening citizen science participation across North Carolina, and does research on how teachers engage with citizen science in elementary school settings. As an entomologist, Chris loves any citizen science project that involves insects (including Nature’s Notebook!) and her happy place is teaching visitors about insects by mucking about the pond or setting up moth lights at the museum field station where she works.