Adam Elzinga

This season marks Adam’s third excursion to the Hawaiian archipelago.  In 2009, he was first introduced to the plight of Hawaiian forest birds while monitoring captive-reared Palila released on the north slope of Mauna Kea.   A year later he returned to the islands to research the breeding ecology of the critically endangered Maui Parrotbill while working with the Maui Forest Bird Recovery Project.  Insights gained from wild Parrotbill breeding behavior and an understanding of current captive breeding difficulties encouraged him to invent a robotic feeding device as a means to strengthen pair bonds and increase captive propagation success of the species.  Adam has gained extensive avian research experience on the mainland as well, spending the past five years working on a variety of research and conservation projects, but his passion remains with the Hawaiian honeycreepers.  In his spare time he is currently developing a remotely-controlled aerial telemetry platform that he hopes may soon be of use in tracking the movements and survival of endangered birds in Hawaii’s rugged terrain.

Stuart Fety

Kauai is the largest island Stuart has worked on. He has previously worked on Kent Island in the Bay of Fundy; Eastern Egg Rock, Matinicus Rock, Seal Island NWR, Stratton Island, and Outer Green Island along coastal Maine; and San Clemente Island offshore of San Diego. In addition, Stuart has spent time in the field in Southern Texas, Northern California, Southern Oregon, and Northern Nevada. He was born and raised in Southern Oregon. He attended Kenyon College in Ohio.  

Aaron Hulsey

Aaron Hulsey graduated with a BSc in Biology from Western Kentucky University in 2007.  His undergraduate thesis involved looking at the impact native grass plantings have on avian communities and how these plantings may contribute to the conservation of declining grassland bird species. He is also an avid birder and has spent many years travelling and birding. Aaron’s previous ornithological work experience has included avian surveying and monitoring in Washington state, assisting with local banding stations, and working with acoustic monitoring of riparian bird communities. He plans on applying to graduate school very soon and hopefully work with bird conservation.

Joey Leibrecht

Recently, Joey has made a swift transformation from a professional graphic artist of 10 years to a motivated avian field biologist.  In addition to his B.S. in Photography in 2000, he studied for a year in 2008 at the University of Connecticut and became involved with the UCONN Ornithology Research Group.  Joey has worked on a variety of bird projects including monitoring Cerulean warblers in Tennessee, UCONN urban ecology study of Monk Parakeets, cooperative breeding and ecology of Kalij Pheasant in Hawai’I Volcanoes National Park, winter bander internship at PRBO’s Palomarin Field Station in California, and The Institute for Bird Population’s Black-backed woodpecker telemetry project studying home range and foraging ecology in Lassen National Forest, CA.  Joey decided to continue his avian conservation direction by joining KFBRP in October 2011 as an Americorps research assistant in order to gain valuable experience working with federally endangered species for a year.

Laura Southcott

Laura hails from southwestern Ontario, Canada. She has a BSc from the University of Toronto and an MSc from the University of British Columbia. Her Master’s thesis work investigated how habitat choice contributes to species formation in a fish called the threespine stickleback. After finishing her fish work Laura began her first bird job in the Manu cloud forest in Peru. She was so overwhelmed by Peru’s bird diversity that she eventually fled to Kauai, where she can count all the extant native forest bird species on her fingers. (She sincerely hopes, however, that this number doesn’t get any smaller!)

Alex Wang

Alex began his career in avian field work at Point Reyes Bird Observatory in Northern California.  He then had his first taste of Hawaiian avifauna while banding albatross for the USFWS in the Papahanaumokuakea National Monument on Tern Island.  From the middle of the Pacific he went to the middle of the desert and conducted avian surveys in desert washes of Arizona.  He then ventured out to the Western Aleutians to work with auklets and other seabirds.  He surveyed for seabirds again in the Gulf of Mexico looking for oiled birds after the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill before coming back to Hawaiian forest birds with a year at the Maui Forest Bird Recovery Project.  He is now trying his luck in the Alakai Swamp!