This is season three for Ron as director of the Lab's ivory-bill search in Arkansas. Ron works with the entire team to hammer out overall strategy for the search, coordinating with many partners in this far-reaching project. Ron has been with the Cornell Lab of Ornithology since 1996. He has an M.S. in Wildlife Science and Ecology and a B.S. in Wildlife Science, both from The Pennsylvania State University. 

Ken Levenstein, Field Supervisor
Ken returns to the search as a veteran of the 2005-06 Arkansas team. Ken is heading up the full-time searchers and coordinating the teams of volunteers. Ken is working on his Ph.D. dissertation at Arkansas State University on the rare cooperative breeding behavior of the Galápagos Hawk (Buteo galapagoensis). He has an M.S. in Environmental Biology  from Antioch University and a B.A. in Communications from Antioch College.

Marty was a volunteer during the 2005-06 ivory-bill search in Arkansas. He is now managing logistics for the current field season there and lending on-the-ground support as the need arises. He is also managing an equipment loan program for coordinators and agencies across the southeast United States where other searches are taking place. He earned his B.S. in Biology from Penn State and his M.S. in Zoology from Oklahoma State.

Sara Barker, Project Coordinator
Sara is also a veteran of past ivory-bill searches. She manages the logistics involved in fielding a team of full-time and volunteer searchers in Arkansas. Sara is a research biologist and has been with the Cornell Lab of Ornithology since 1997. She received her B.A. in biology from Colby College.

Brian Gill, Field Technician
Brian is back for more after being a member of the 2005-06 search team in Arkansas. He earned a Bachelor’s degree in Biology with an emphasis on Ecology from Northern Arizona University. Brian has experience in the bottomland hardwood forests of Arkansas, having been there as part of a study on the Swallow-tailed Kite. In his free time Brian enjoys backpacking and fishing.

David Luneau, Remote Camera Specialist
David captured the now-famous video footage of what many experts believe to be an Ivory-billed Woodpecker in 2004. He remains an avid ivory-bill searcher and will be coordinating the remote camera search effort in the Big Woods this season. He is a professor of Electronics and Computers at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. He has an M.S. in Electrical Engineering from Georgia Tech University and a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Rice University.

Joanie was overjoyed to hear about the Arkansas sightings of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker. She attended the Ecology of Large Woodpeckers Symposium in Brinkley, Arkansas, the following year. Now she is excited to be a member of the 2006-07 search team. She received a B.S. in Botany from the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, in 2000 and is a Ph.D. candidate at the same school, studying the foraging behavior of forest birds in northwestern Arkansas.

Brad returns to Arkansas for a second season, having been part of the 2005-06 search team. His experience includes a stint as a survey technician for a Mexican Spotted Owl project in New Mexico. He was also a migration observer for HawkWatch International at the Grand Canyon. He graduated from Arkansas State University in 2004 with a B.S. in Wildlife Ecology and Management.

Chris Rea, Field Technician

Chris Rea is from Indiana and this is his first season as a part of the search team. He earned a B.S. in Wildlife Management at Purdue University. Before becoming part of the search team, he worked on the Indiana Osprey Reintroduction Program and with Piping Plovers in northeast Montana.

Ken is a member of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker Species Recovery Team and director of Conservation Science at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. He oversees various studies of the habitat requirements of forest birds, and he is chair of the international science committee of Partners in Flight. Ken also serves as co-captain of the Lab's World Series of Birding team, the Sapsuckers. He earned his Ph.D. from Louisiana State University.

“Fitz”  has been the director of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology since 1995. He has led scientific expeditions to remote areas of South America and published extensively on tropical species including seven new bird species he discovered. Dr. Fitzpatrick received his Ph.D. from Princeton University and A.B. from Harvard University.

Russ Charif
Russ is the coordinator for the acoustic search effort and is a research biologist in the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's Bioacoustics Research Program (BRP). He has worked on studies of acoustic communication and acoustically based population monitoring in several species of birds, as well as elephants and whales. He has also been involved in the design, testing, and documentation of specialized software developed at BRP for analysis of animal sounds. Russ earned an A.B. in Biology from Harvard University, and an M.S. in Neurobiology and Behavior from Cornell University.

Mobile Search Team

Martjan Lammertink, Project Scientist, Team Leader
Martjan is one of the world's leading experts on large woodpeckers. As part of the mobile search team, he will travel to states where ivory-bill searches are taking place to follow up on possible sightings or other possible encounters.  Martjan has an M.S. from the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and has nearly completed his Ph.D. there.

Utami Setiorini, Field Technician
Utami is a veteran of the last two search seasons in Arkansas and takes that experience on the road with the mobile search team. Utami has a B.S. in Forestry from Tanjungpura University in West Borneo, Indonesia, and an M.S. in Forest and Nature Conservation from Wageningen University in the Netherlands.

Nathan Banfield, Field Technician
Nathan is a field biologist who worked on the Arkansas ivory-bill team last season. He brings his enthusiasm and terrific fieldwork skills along for the ride as part of the mobile response team. Nathan has a B.A. in Natural Science from Avila College.

Chris has been following the ivory-bill saga since the reported sighting of a pair in Louisiana in 1999. He is thrilled to join the search now as a member of the mobile search team. Chris is from Oregon where he's worked as a field biologist with a Spotted Owl demography study in the Oregon Coast Ranges since 1995. He earned a B.S. in zoology from Oregon State University.