Beach Watch Staff of the Greater Farallones Association (formerly Farallones Marine Sanctuary Association (FMSA)
Kirsten Lindquist is the Conservation Science Program Manager for Greater Farallones Association. She manages Beach Watch, a Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary long-term monitoring program that utilizes the expertise of over 140 citizen scientists to collect data along the coast. She is also a seabird observer on ACCESS Partnership research cruises within our three local sanctuaries. Kirsten earned a degree in Environmental Studies and Marine Conservation from Prescott College in 2001. Since then she has worked in the remote field studying seabirds and marine mammals throughout the Pacific, Antarctica, and most notably here throughout the California Current. klindquist@farallones.org
Dru Devlin is a Research Associate for the Greater Farallones Association. She assists with the management of the Beach Watch program,Emergency Response Planning and wildlife observation and research support for ACCESS Partnership cruises. She enjoys working closely with the volunteers and getting out to the beach and sea whenever she can. She earned both her Master’s of Public and Business Administration, and B.A. in Social Ecology from the University of California at Irvine. ddevlin@farallones.org
Peter Pyle is the Advanced Technical Review Specialist for Beach Watch. He participates in training volunteers advanced bird identification skills both in the class room and in the field. He is an integral part of our data review process by confirming age, sex and age of all dead birds documented in the field. Peter received a B.S. in Biology from Swarthmore College in 1979 and has careered as an ornithologist and marine biologist. He has published many papers on bird molt and taught workshops on this subject in North and Latin America, participated in numerous at-sea observational cruises for marine birds and. He is a Research Associate both at the California Academy of Sciences, San Francisco, and the B.P. Bishop Museum, Honolulu. He is a prolific author of scientific papers and three books. He is currently a staff biologist at the Institute for Bird Populations.
Kelly DeForest (they/them) is the Beach Watch Program Assistant. Kelly’s journey with Beach Watch began in 2019 when a love of marine birds and interest in community science led them to become a volunteer. Since then, they’ve worked in the field and behind a computer on several projects studying seabirds and marine mammals in the California and Humboldt Currents. They are currently pursuing an MS in Geographic Information Science from San Francisco State University where they are using community science data in their research to address marine conservation issues. Outside of work, they enjoy making music, birding, and cuddling up with their two cats, Misty and Squid.
Beach Watch is proud to regularly work with non-profit groups, resource agencies and academic institutions. Our partners include:
California Academy of Sciences
Point Blue Conservation Science
