Please welcome our newest board members!

Ken Sinay: With an educational background in wildlife biology, Ken has applied his experience and knowledge toward educating and facilitating natural and cultural history experiences for people. His current tourism service is “Yellowstone Now!” His community services are offered through Audubon, the Bozeman Library, and his own programs. As the new program chair for SAS, Ken is interested in subjects and people who may be appropriate for future presentations. Contact him at programs@sacajaweaaudubon.org.

 

Mikaela Gioia Howie: Mikaela has been in Montana for nine years since moving to Bozeman to be an official observer for the Bridger HawkWatch in 2014. She is an ecologist and has spent most of her career working on research and monitoring projects focused on avian ecology. As a field biologist she has worked with all sorts of birds: songbirds, shorebirds, raptors, and grouse.

She has lived and worked all over the continent, from arctic Alaska to the swamps of Louisiana, from the desert of Arizona to coastal Maine. Since being in Bozeman she has worked for several local nonprofits and spent five years teaching as an adjunct faculty member at MSU in the Ecology and Chemistry departments. Her favorite part of teaching was designing and teaching a Field Biologist course, which took students to local birding hotspots and fostered in them a love for birding! She now has her own small ecological consulting firm (WISE, LLC), working primarily with private landowners to implement conservation actions on their lands that benefit birds and wildlife habitats. She is excited to be a new SAS board member!

 

Ben Goodheart: Ben is a PhD student here at Montana State University, studying the impacts of humans and dominant competitors on an African wild dog population in Zambia. He has been in Bozeman since 2019, and in western Montana since 2007. Birds became a passion after taking an Ornithology class at the University of Montana from the legendary Dick Huto. He has since worked on avian field projects throughout western Montana conducting point counts, banding, spot mapping, and nest searching. Currently he is a TA in Ornithology here at MSU and teaches field ornithology in the summers. He works to spread enthusiasm for avian ecology and conservation to his students, and hopes to contribute to the conservation of our local bird populations and habitats as a part of SAS!