Field Directors

DAVID MATTSON is a Research Wildlife Biologist with the USGS Southwest Biological Science Center and a Lecturer and Visiting Senior Scientist at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. David received degrees in Forest Resource Management and Forest Ecology and a doctorate in Wildlife Resource Management from the University of Idaho. Dr. Mattson has studied large carnivores for the last 27 years, focused on puma ecology and human-puma interactions in Arizona and the conservation and behavioral ecology of grizzly bears in the Yellowstone ecosystem of Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho. He has intensively studied grizzly bear and puma foraging behaviors and diets and has incorporated ecological information from both species into models for risk management and broad-scale evaluations of habitat conditions. During the last two decades Dr. Mattson’s research has focused on conservation policy issues. These conservation-related studies have dealt with the social, political, and organizational dynamics that shape the policies and practices of carnivore and other conservation programs. David teaches classes focused on relations between science and policy, the doctrine of scientific management, policy sciences, large-scale conservation, and conservation of large carnivores. His work has been featured in the journal Science and has been widely presented, including papers in Ecology, Conservation Biology, Biological Conservation, The Journal of Wildlife Management, and the Journal of Mammalogy, and invited talks at the Smithsonian, American Museum of Natural History, the American Institute of Biological Sciences, and International Conferences on Bear Research and Management.

STEPHEN FAULKNER is a Research Ecologist with the U.S. Geological Survey National Wetlands Research Center in Lafayette, LA and an Adjunct Professor in the School of the Coast and Environment at Louisiana State University. He has a B.S. and M.S. in Forestry from LSU and a Ph.D. in Wetland Biogeochemistry from Duke University. Stephen’s primary research interests center on the biogeochemical ecology of riparian of forest ecosystems. His current research projects include the effects of land-use and climate change on ecosystem structure, function, and services of forested wetlands in the Lower Mississippi Valley.

KEITH ROBINSON is currently the Director of the USGS New Hampshire-Vermont Water Science Center. Previously he managed the hydrologic studies section of the Water Science Center and was the Study Chief of the New England Coastal Basins Study of the USGS National Water-Quality Assessment Program. This study focused on the effects of urbanization on surface and ground water quality and the ecological conditions of streams, variations of mercury in fish and sediment, and arsenic in ground waters. He has been involved in developing regional stochastic water-quality models, including the SPARROW model for nitrogen and phosphorus in New England streams. He began his career with USGS in 1988 working in the New Jersey office on a variety of water-quality-related studies, including the original SPARROW pilot effort. Prior to working for USGS, he spent 9 years with the NJ Department of Environmental Protection doing water-quality planning and assessments, including State Water-Quality Inventory Reports and Nonpoint Source assessments. He has a degree in Natural Resource Management from Rutgers.