West Coast of Vancouver Island

Mary Ruckelshaus, Ph.D.
Managing Director

Ruckelshaus oversees all work of the Natural Capital Project partnership including strategy, coordination, fundraising, communications, and hiring. She is based in Seattle, WA, where she was a staff scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries Service for 13 years. Prior to that, she was an assistant professor of biological sciences at The Florida State University (1994-1997). The main focus of her recent work is on developing ecological models including estimates of the flow of environmental services under different management regimes in marine systems worldwide. Ruckelshaus serves on the board of The Nature Conservancy (and its Science Council), is a Trustee on The Nature Conservancy's Washington Board, and is a past chair of the Science Advisory Board of the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS). Ruckelshaus has also been chief scientist for the Puget Sound Partnership, a public-private institution charged with achieving recovery of the Puget Sound terrestrial, freshwater and marine ecosystems. Ruckelshaus has a bachelor's degree in human biology from Stanford University, a master's degree in fisheries from the University of Washington, and a doctoral degree in botany, also from Washington.

Katie Arkema, Ph.D.
Marine Ecologist

Arkema is working on Marine InVEST, a set of models for quantifying the services provided by coastal and marine ecosystems. Arkema's research interests include community ecology, biophysical-coupling in nearshore habitats, marine ecosystem-based management, and land-sea interactions. Arkema received her Ph.D. from the Department of Ecology, Evolution and Marine Biology at the University of California, Santa Barbara and her B.A. in ecology with a minor in Latin American studies from Princeton University.

Greg Guannel, Ph.D.
Coastal Engineer

Guannel is part of the Natural Capital's Marine Initiative, developing Marine InVEST's coastal protection module. Guannel's research involves the incorporation of natural habitat in the modeling of nearshore hydrodynamics as well as short- and long-term shoreline change. Greg received his Civil Engineer Degree from Ecole Superieure des Travaux Publics in Paris, France, his M.S. in Ocean Engineering from Texas A&M University, and his Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from Oregon State University.

Anne Guerry, Ph.D.
Lead Scientist, Marine Initiative

Guerry is the Lead Scientist (with Mary Ruckelshaus) on the Natural Capital Project's Marine Initiative. Building on the success of the terrestrial InVEST tool, the marine team is building Marine InVEST, an environmental services scenario assessment tool for marine and coastal systems. Beyond environmental services, Anne's primary research interests are in community ecology, rocky intertidal systems, and ecosystem-based management. She received her PhD in zoology from Oregon State University, her MS in wildlife ecology from the University of Maine, and her BA in Environmental Studies and English from Yale University.

Choong-Ki (CK) Kim, Ph.D.
Oceanographer

Kim is developing biological-physical coupled models for the Natural Capital Project to value the environmental services provided by coastal and marine ecosystems. He has worked extensively in numerical modeling studies with scales ranging from an estuary to a regional ocean. The focus has been on hydrodynamics, thermal discharge effects, air-sea interaction, storm surge prediction, transport processes of marine organisms, and coupled biological-physical processes. His most recent work covered Mobile Bay and the Gulf of Mexico. Earlier work examined the Yellow Sea and Korea's South and East Seas. Kim received a Masters Degree in Oceanography from Inha University in South Korea and a Ph.D. in Marine Sciences from the University of South Alabama.

Michael Papenfus
Economist, Marine Initiative

As a member of the Marine InVEST team, Papenfus is applying economic valuation techniques to marine environmental services. He is particularly interested in how valuation techniques can be adapted to regions lacking in sufficient data to carryout state-of-the-art valuation studies and looking at techniques to integrate different valuation metrics in a valid manner. His previous research has looked at the effects of environmental zoning on property values, respondent uncertainty in contingent valuation, and the valuation of lake water quality. He is finishing his PhD at the University of Wisconsin, Madison and was part of the NSF IGERT program in Human Dimensions of Social and Aquatic System Interactions. In addition to his background in environmental economics, he has training in conservation biology and ecology and has worked and conducted research in Indonesia, the Philippines, and Papua New Guinea.

Heather Tallis, Ph.D.
Lead Scientist

Tallis is leading development of terrestrial and freshwater environmental services within InVEST, along with several projects to apply InVEST and environmental services approaches, including water funds in Colombia and Ecuador with The Nature Conservancy. Tallis’ research interests include marine ecology, ecosystem science, biogeochemistry, and traditional knowledge systems. She has explored resource management options with Penan communities in Borneo, villagers in Cambodia, timber and aquaculture industries in Washington (USA) and a hydropower company in New Zealand. Her academic research has focused on the biological consequences of nutrient and carbon flows in the open ocean, coastal zone, rivers and forests. Tallis received her Ph.D. from the University of Washington and has won awards from Rotary International, the Ford Foundation and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, among others.

Jodie Toft, Ph.D.
Fisheries Ecologist

Toft is working on Marine InVEST, a set of models for quantifying the services provided by coastal and marine ecosystems. Toft's research interests include modeling of coastal and marine social-ecological-systems, fisheries bioeconomics, and ecosystem-based management. Toft received her Ph.D. from the School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences at the University of Washington and her B.A. in biology and public policy analysis from Pomona College.

Gregg Verutes
GIS Analyst, Marine Initiative

Verutes develops the Marine InVEST tools, a set of models for quantifying the services provided by coastal and marine ecosystems. His work focuses primarily on automating GIS processes for conservation modeling and improving the usability of spatial decision support tools. He has previously worked for National Geographic Maps and the World Wildlife Fund's Conservation Science Program. Verutes received his M.S. from the Department of Geography at the San Diego State University and his B.S. in Policy Analysis and Management from Cornell University.