Who We Are
In all, there are more than 40 scientists, banders, wildlife veterinarians and pathologists who donate their time and expertise to Project SNOWstorm. Our institutional home, the Ned Smith Center for Nature and Art in central Pennsylvania, is a 501 (c)(3) nonprofit, so your donation to Project SNOWstorm supporting their work is tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law.
These are some of the faces of Project SNOWstorm:
Dr. Guy Fitzgérald
Dr. Guy Fitzgerald is a veterinarian, clinical instructor at the Faculte de medecine veterinaire of the Universite de Montreal and president of the Union quebecoise de rehabilitation des oiseaux de proie (UQROP). He founded a...
Matt Solensky
Matt Solensky is a wildlife biologist with the U.S. Geological Survey’s Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center in North Dakota. He has been studying raptors since graduate school, when he spent a season banding migrants at Hawk Ridge ...
Dr. Rebecca McCabe
Rebecca McCabe’s Ph.D. research at McGill University in Québec used Project SNOWstorm’s datasets (both tracking and necropsy data) to link individual movements to population-level processes by focusing on various aspects of snowy owl ...
Dr. Cindy Driscoll
Dr. Cindy Driscoll became the first state fish and wildlife veterinarian for Maryland DNR in 1999. She is currently the director of the Fish and Wildlife Health Program at the Cooperative Oxford Lab and consults with local, state and fed...
Dr. Sherril Davison
Dr. Sherril Davison is an associate professor of avian medicine and pathology at Penn Vet. She received her B.A., VMD, M.S. and MBA from the University of Pennsylvania and is board certified by the American College of Poultry Veterinar...
Dr. Ellen Bronson
Dr. Ellen Bronson is the head veterinarian at the Maryland Zoo in Baltimore and also leads the zoo’s field projects and research endeavors. She has worked as a clinical veterinarian at the zoo since 2006. She works on conservation projec...
Dr. David La Puma
Dr. David La Puma is the director of global market development for Cellular Tracking Technologies, the former director of NJ Audubon’s Cape May Bird Observatory, and an avid birder, ornithologist and conservationist. David received hi...
Nova Mackentley and Chris Neri
Nova Mackentley and Chris Neri are a legendary pair of raptor banders living at Whitefish Point on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. A lifelong birder, Chris began banding owls in the mid-1990s at Cape May, NJ, and began banding raptors...
Falcon Environmental
With more than 30 years’ experience, Falcon Environmental in Québec is a leader in ecological control and management of nuisance wildlife at airports and landfills, as well as environmental consulting, the development of educational o...
Gene Jacobs
Gene Jacobs is a raptor biologist and owner of Raptor Services, LLC (research/consulting). He has studied Wisconsin raptors since 1973 and banded more than 17,000 raptors along the way. He’s passionate about sharing raptor education, h...
Andrew McGann
Andrew McGann’s “bird jobs” started early, conducting point counts and banding saw-whet owls during high school. He went on to work with chickadees and Cozumel thrashers during his B.S. in biology at Villanova University, and with ru...
Michael Lanzone
Mike Lanzone is founder and CEO of Cellular Tracking Technologies, which has been a major sponsor of Project SNOWstorm since its founding. With his wife Dr. Trish Miller, Mike is one of the leading golden eagle researchers in North Ameri...
Drew Weber
Drew manages the website and crowdfunding campaigns for Project SNOWstorm, and has been with the team from the very first irruption. Drew got his start with owl research during several seasons of following telemetered Northern Saw-whet O...
David Brinker
Dave Brinker. Originally from Wisconsin, Dave — a founding co-director of Project SNOWstorm — is a regional ecologist in the Maryland Department of Natural Resources’ Natural Heritage Program, where he focuses on biodiversity conservat...
Scott Weidensaul
Scott Weidensaul is the author of more than two dozen books and field researcher specializing in migration. In addition to co-founding SNOWstorm, he is a co-director of Project Owlnet, and has directed the Ned Smith Center’s owl-banding ...
Dr. Erica Miller
Dr. Erica Miller was a full-time wildlife veterinarian and rehabilitator for 25 years and has been on staff at three veterinary schools. She is currently the field operations manager and a senior research scientist for the Wildlife Futur...
Dr. Jean-François Therrien
Jean-François (J.F.) Therrien was born and raised in Quebec, Canada, completing his Ph.D. at Laval University in 2011 studying the movements and predation pressure of snowy owls in the Arctic ecosystem. J.F. is senior scientist and gra...
Tom McDonald
Tom McDonald is the founder of Project Snowywatch in New York State, where the primary thrust of his 30 years in the field has been snowy owl migration, ecology and habitat studies. He has worked with more than 600 owls and has been a co...
Steve Huy
Steve Huy is a co-founder of Project SNOWstorm, and a co-director of Project Owlnet. He operates the Lambs Knoll station in the Catoctin Mountains of Maryland, where he bands migrant northern saw-whet owls....
Norman Smith
Norman Smith, recently retired as the director of the Blue Hills Trailside Museum, having worked for Massachusetts Audubon since 1974. He began studying snowy owls at Logan Airport in Boston in 1981 and has banded and relocated more than...
