As a conservation biologist, I believe it is my responsibility to provide decision makers with scientific findings from an unbiased viewpoint. While I have testified or presented scientific results to Congressional committees, state legislative committees, and other regulatory branches of government, my current work primarily focuses on science-policy projects related to the United Nations and some multilateral environmental agreements, such as the Minamata Convention and the Convention on Biological Diversity.

Early in my career, I spent 5 years working as a field ornithologist for the Michigan Breeding Bird Atlas. From 1991-1993 was the Executive Director for the Whitefish Point Bird Observatory, then left to pursue a PhD at the University of Minnesota assessing mercury in the environment through a key indicator – the Common Loon. In 1998 I founded a 501(c)3 non-profit organization called Biodiversity Research Institute (BRI). BRI’s mission is to further progressive wildlife research and conservation in the science-policy fields. BRI has now grown to a nearly $10 million annual budget, 60-staff, well-established 25-year-old organization that includes four Centers of Excellence and 16 Research Programs.