About OCCRI
The staff of the Oregon Climate Change Research Institute includes:
Dr. Philip Mote
Kathie Dello
Dr. Heather Lintz
Dr. David Rupp
Dr. Julie Vano
Dr. Samantha Chisolm Hatfield
Arwen Bird
Meghan Dalton
Josh Foster
Darrin Sharp
John Stevenson
Dean Vickers
Kim Carson
Linnia Hawkins
Sihan (Meredith) Li
Zolton Bair
Becky Miller
Dr. Philip Mote – Director
email: pmote@coas.oregonstate.edu
phone: 541-737-5694
media: @pwmote (twitter), Philip_Mote (researchgate), phil-mote (linkedin)
Philip W. Mote is the director of the Oregon Climate Change Research Institute (OCCRI) and a professor in the College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences. His current research interests include regional climate modeling with a superensemble generated by volunteers’ personal computers. He is the co-leader of the NOAA-funded Climate Impacts Research Consortium (CIRC) for the Northwest, and also of the Northwest Climate Science Center for the US Department of the Interior. He earned a BA in Physics from Harvard University and a PhD in Atmospheric Sciences from the University of Washington. A printable PDF of Dr. Mote’s bio is here
Kathie Dello – Associate Director
email: kdello@coas.oregonstate.edu
phone: 541-737-8927
media: @kathiedello (twitter)
Kathie is the Associate Director of OCCRI, and Deputy Director of the Oregon Climate Service (OCS). OCS serves as the State Climate Office for Oregon. She works on climate impacts analysis, climate adaptation, state agency engagement, and public outreach for OCCRI and the Climate Impacts Research Consortium (CIRC). She coordinated Oregon’s first climate assessment report, which is required under the legislation that created OCCRI. She has a BS in Atmospheric Science and an MA in Geography from the State University of New York (SUNY) at Albany. She has completed most of her coursework toward a PhD in Environmental Sciences at Oregon State University.
Dr. Samantha Chisholm Hatfield – Tribal Liason/Postdoctoral Research Associate
email: shatfield@coas.oregonstate.edu
phone: 541-737-0558
media: @drsamzs (twitter)
Dr. Hatfield is an enrolled member of the Confederated Tribes of Siletz, and is also Cherokee. Her culturally traditional upbringing led her to become interested in the juncture between Indigenous systems of knowledge and western science. Samantha holds a Bachelors in Ethnic Studies: Native American Studies and Cultural Anthropology, and a PhD in Environmental Science, specializing in Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) from Oregon State University. Her interests and expertise include TEK, Native systems in the Pacific Northwest, cultural systems, and communication. Her other interests include writing, speaking, dancing traditionally at pow wows, and cultural events.
Dr. Heather Lintz – Assistant Professor Senior Research
email: hlintz@coas.oregonstate.edu
phone: 541-737-2996
Dr. Lintz holds an MS in Botany and a PhD in Statistical Ecology from Oregon State University. Her research interests include methodological, basic, and applied questions addressing climate change and tree species distributions across the western United States. Her current research investigates ecological thresholds, climate extremes, climate variability, and landscape genomics as related to tree species’ distributions. She also leads the innovation and commercialization of several sensors to measure tree attributes cost-effectively at a landscape scale.
Dr. David Rupp – Research Associate
email: drupp@coas.oregonstate.edu
phone: 541-737-5222
media: @david_e_rupp (twitter)
Dr. David Rupp is interested in climate variability and change, and in particular how these two factors impact the hydrological cycle and water resources. David explores the human influence on regional climate, both present and future, using global and regional climate models as his tools. David holds a BS in Atmospheric Sciences from the University of Arizona, an MS in Forestry from Northern Arizona University, and a PhD in Water Resources Engineering from Oregon State University. See David’s webpage here.
Dr. Julie Vano – Postdoctoral Fellow
email: jvano@coas.oregonstate.edu
phone: 206-794-7946
Dr. Vano’s research interests include hydrology, water resource management, science policy, climate change impacts, and system dynamics. Her current work aims to develop innovative approaches to better understand climate impacts on local water resources in the Pacific Northwest. She holds an MS in Land Resources from the University of Wisconsin and a PhD in Civil and Environmental Engineering from the University of Washington. See Julie’s webpage here.
Arwen Bird – NW Climate Science Boot Camp Coordinator
email: abird@coas.oregonstate.edu
phone: 503.318.5104
Arwen works at OCCRI to coordinate the annual Northwest Regional Climate Science Center (NW CSC) 2014 Climate Boot Camp. The boot camp is a week-long interdisciplinary summer training program, sponsored by the Department of the Interior (DOI) to meet strategic educational goals and supported through a collaboration between NW CSC and university partners (Oregon State University, University of Idaho, and University of Washington). Arwen holds an MS in Marine Resource Management from the College of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences at Oregon State and a BS in Biology from Lewis and Clark College.
Meghan Dalton – Faculty Research Assistant
email: mdalton@coas.oregonstate.edu
phone: 541-737-3081
Meghan has a BA in Mathematics from Linfield College and an MS in Atmospheric Science from the College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences at Oregon State University. She applies regional climate projections to local and regional entities, including municipal water utilities, public health departments, forest, rangeland, and water resource managers, farmers, and tribes, helping them to assess and adapt to future impacts of climate change. She also coordinated the Northwest climate assessment report supporting the 2013 National Climate Assessment.
Josh Foster – Faculty Research Assistant
email: jfoster@coas.oregonstate.edu
phone: 541-737-5262
media: @jgfoster7 (twitter)
Josh has a BA in International Relations and Environmental Policy from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and two MA’s from Yale University in International Relations and Environmental Management. He has over 25 years experience working on climate change science and policy issues in the federal, non-profit, and state sectors, including over 20 years working on climate adaptation. He works for OCCRI as the university program manager for the NOAA-funded Climate Impacts Research Consortium (CIRC) and the Department of the Interior funded NW regional Climate Science Center.
Darrin Sharp – Faculty Research Assistant
email: dsharp@coas.oregonstate.edu
phone: 970-219-6713
media: @darrin_occri (twitter)
Darrin has a BS and MS in Computer Science from the University of Illinois, and an MS in Ecology from Colorado State University. He has experience working in both the high-tech and environmental consulting industries. His interests and expertise include the development of information technologies used for ecological and environmental research, the application of downscaled global climate models to regional impacts assessments, and science communication.
John Stevenson – Faculty Research Assistant
email: jstevenson@coas.oregonstate.edu
phone: 541-737-5689
John joined OCCRI as a Regional Climate Extension Specialist with the Climate Impacts Research Consortium (CIRC), the NOAA-funded Regional Integrated Science and Assessment (RISA) project for the Pacific Northwest. Previously he was a research analyst and field researcher with Ecotrust and also worked with NOAA’s Office of National Marine Sanctuaries. He holds an MS in Marine Resource Management from the College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences at Oregon State University, and a BA in political science from the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Dean Vickers – Senior Faculty Research Assistant
email: vickers@coas.oregonstate.edu
phone: 541-737-5706
Dean has been a full time Faculty Research Assistant at OSU since 1983. He has worked in a wide variety of research areas in the atmospheric sciences, ranging from turbulence and boundary layers, to mesoscale convective systems, to global climate change. He is working on the OCCRI regional climate modeling project. Dean holds a BA in Physics from SUNY Potsdam and an MS in Atmospheric Science from OSU. See Dean’s web page with vitae and publications.
Kim Carson – Program Assistant
email: kcarson@coas.oregonstate.edu
phone: 541-737-5705
media: @carson_kcarson (twitter)
Kim comes to OCCRI from The Freshwater Trust, where she was an education coordinator for their office in the MidWillamette Valley. Focusing on environmental education, she has also worked as the Outdoor School Coordinator for the Corvallis, Oregon School District. Kim has an MA in art education and originally hails from Wisconsin. She lives on 50 acres of land south of Corvallis where she’s a restoration partner with the US Fish and Wildlife Service, working to contribute to rare and declining habitat of the Willamette Valley; her hobby is combating invasive species on her land.
Linnia Hawkins – PhD Candidate
email: lhawkins@coas.oregonstate.edu
media: @linniahawkins (twitter)
Linnia is a graduate student in CEOAS working with Professor Mote on the Forest Mortality, Economics and Climate project. She is analyzing a superensemble of regional climate simulations to assess the sensitivity of terrestrial ecosystems to climate change in Western North America. She earned a BS in Mathematics at Montana State University where she worked on developing multivariate statistical methods for assessing changes in distance matrices.
Sihan (Meredith) Li – PhD Candidate
email: sli@coas.oregonstate.edu
Sihan (Meredith) is a graduate student in CEOAS working with Professor Mote on the regional climate modeling project, supported by a Climate Science Center fellowship and also the REACCH-PNA project. She earned a BS in Atmospheric Science from Yunnan University in Kunming, China, where she did research projects on heat flux in the Indo-Pacific warm pool and wavelet analysis of interdecadal variability.
Zolton Bair – Graduate Student
email: bairz@science.oregonstate.eduZolton is a graduate student in the Department of Botany and Plant Pathology (BPP) working with Professor Lintz as a co-advisor and with Professor Stone in BPP as a co-advisor. Zolton is working to develop methods to breed trees for pathogen resistance using genomics and other next generation technologies. His project will identify candidate genes for blister rust resistance in whitebark pine, a tree species slated for listing as endangered due to blister rust, bark beetles, and climate change. Zolton’s broader interests include backpacking, mushroom hunting, and permaculture.
Becky Miller – Undergraduate Student in the Bioresource Research Department
email: millereb@onid.orst.edu
Becky is an undergraduate student of the Bioresource Research Department earning a BS in Sustainable Ecosystems. Under the direction of her mentor, Dr. Heather Lintz, she is studying the links between bud break and foliage temperature using infrared photography and time-lapse photography. Becky appreciates the beauty and bounty of the Pacific Northwest by adventuring in the woods.