About Us
Karen Oberhauser
Director, Monarchs in the Classroom Program; Associate Professor, Department of Fisheries, Wildlife and Conservation Biology, University of Minnesota; President, Monarch Butterfly Sanctuary Foundation.
Karen Oberhauser has been studying monarch butterflies since 1984.
She works with teachers and pre-college students in Minnesota and throughout the
United States using monarchs to teach about biology, conservation, and the process
of science.
"I am becoming more and more concerned with the impacts that humans have on monarchs
and other organisms, and with the precarious balance between human needs and the
needs of the species with which we share the planet. I'm convinced that learning
as much as we can about our fellow earth-inhabitants and then sharing the amazing
things that we discover will tip the balance in a direction that will be better
for all of us."
Lis Young-Isebrand
Coordinator, Schoolyard Ecology Explorations
Elisabeth Young-Isebrand graduated from Macalester College in 1989
with a major in biology. She taught high school biology, chemistry, AP biology and
environmental biology for seven years at Minneapolis Washburn High School. She left
Minneapolis Washburn in 1999 to raise her son, work part-time in environmental education
and finish her Masters degree.
Elisabeth began working with Dr. Karen Oberhauser at Monarchs
in the Classroom (MITC) as program coordinator in 2001. Working with Dr.
Oberhauser exposed her to the powerful impact monarchs have on motivating students
to ask questions and learn.
In the spring of 2005 she began her current position as community program specialist
for a new initiative called Schoolyard Ecology Explorations.
She is interested in the ways students can learn science and other topics by studying
the plants and animals in their schoolyard. She completed her M.Ed. in environmental
education at the University of Minnesota in 2005.
Grant Bowers
Program
Coordinator, Monarchs in the Classroom
Grant first got involved with the Monarch Lab through a freshman seminar about monarch
biology and conservation Karen was teaching in his first semester at the U of M.
After that, he took another class with Karen in the spring and was thrilled at the
chance to work in the Monarch Lab in the summer of 2005. Grant spent three years
as an undergraduate research assistant, helping out with graduate students’ research
and maintaining the lab until he graduated in May of 2008. After graduation, he
became the Program Coordinator for Monarchs in the Classroom.
Grant is excited to have the opportunity to work with teachers and provide the tools
they need to teach science, inquiry, and conservation biology.
I think back to the teachers that impacted me, and most were science teachers. Without
their passion and dedication, I might not be in this field. To have the chance to
work with teachers who impact their students in the same way my teachers have is
rewarding and fun.
Alma De Anda
Alma P. De Anda received
her B.S in zoology from California State Polytechnic University, Pomona in 2005.
Through various undergraduate research programs such as the Ronald E. McNair Scholars
Program (California) and Life Science Summer Undergraduate Research Program (Minnesota),
she became interested in plant-insect interactions and predator-prey dynamics. While
a member of the LSSURP program in Minnesota, she worked with Karen Oberhauser and
is now in graduate school in the Ecology, Evolution and Behavior program under Karen
Oberhauser's advisement. Currently Alma is working on predator-prey dynamics using
monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus) as a model system.
"While researchers have studied how host plant defenses and temperature affect larval
survival, there are few comprehensive studies of predators, and no studies of the
relative importance of predators, host plant defenses and abiotic factors. I propose
to identify predators across a wide range of monarch habitat to shed new light on
the selective pressures exerted on the immature stages of monarchs by predators
and to determine the life stage (egg or larval instar) at which predation is most
important to this organism. In addition, I will study the relative importance of
interactions with host plants and predators in regulating monarch population densities
(other work in my lab is addressing abiotic factors). My work--involving observational
field studies, empirical work, a cooperative network of volunteer citizen scientists,
and modeling--will provide the first comprehensive study of monarch population regulation
during the breeding portion of their annual migratory cycle."
Reba Batalden
Reba Batalden is a PhD student
with the monarch lab. Her research focuses on the effect that climate change could
have on monarchs' summer and migratory habitat. This project relies heavily on data
collected by MLMP volunteers. Reba also participates
in the MLMP as she monitors three sites in Minnesota
and one in Wisconsin with the lab group. She is active in the
Monarchs in the Classroom program as well, helping to teach teachers about
insect ecology and give them tools to use in their schools. Reba joined the monarch
lab in the summer of 2003, after completing her undergraduate degree at St. Olaf
College.
Dina Kountoupes
Dina Kountoupes graduated from Macalester College in 1993 with a degree in
International Studies and Spanish. She also studied environmental issues and followed
that interest immediately after college to work in environmental education centers
around the nation: in California, Maine, Vermont, and Minnesota. In 1996 she took
her interest in the environment to the tropics of Costa Rica where she applied her
Spanish skills to work at sustainable development research centers, sustainable
farms, environmental education centers and a sea turtle research center. In 2000
she returned to Minnesota and began working in children’s gardens programs while
pursuing a Master's Degree at the University of Minnesota in environmental education,
under the advisement of Dr. Karen Oberhauser. Her thesis project evaluated the MLMP program to learn more about how it could better
serve a youth audience. Dina continues to work in the monarch lab at the University
of MN, helping coordinate both the MLMP program
as well as the Schoolyard Ecology Exploration (SEE)
program.
Amy Witty
Websites Administrator
Amy Witty graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
in June 1995 with a BS in Mechanical Engineering. She worked as a manufacturing
engineering, design engineer, and continuous improvement specialist at various local
companies before leaving Corporate America to have a baby (she now has two kids)
and to develop her own web design company, Witty Web Design. She also enjoys photography and soccer.
Former Staff
Sarah Kempke
Graduate Student, University of Michigan
Sarah Kempke graduated from the U of MN in May 2005 with a BS in Ecology, Evolution
and Behavior, and a minor in Technical Communication. Interested in ecology, insects,
and human impacts on the environment - as well as in communicating these topics
to the public - she jumped at the chance to coordinate programs at the Monarch Lab.
She is constantly inspired by the hard work and dedication of the monarch students,
teachers and volunteers that she interacts with every day - in whom she sees hope
for future generations of monarchs, and for our world as a whole.
Sonia Altizer
Associate Professor, University of Georgia
As a graduate student at the University of Minnesota, Sonia Altizer
studied the interactions between a protozoan parasite and monarch butterflies. She
is interested in how diseases affect natural populations of many organisms, and
is currently teaching at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia.
"A fascinating array of parasites and diseases persist in insect hosts, and
I would like to understand factors affecting parasite outbreaks in insect populations.
I hope that my research on host-parasite interactions will aid in the preservation
of threatened species and habitats."
Michelle Prysby
As a graduate student in the Department of Ecology, University of Minnesota and
as the first Director of the Monarch
Larva Monitoring Project, Michelle Prysby studied patterns
of monarch distribution and abundance, and the many factors that influence these
patterns. She is now the Master Naturalist Program Coordinator for the state of
Virginia.
"I see a need for better communication between scientists and the public, and
my passion is to help bridge this communication gap through both formal and informal
education. The nationwide larval monarch monitoring program is just one example
of the many possible partnerships between scientists and the public, and I intend
to continue developing and promoting these partnerships throughout my career."
Athena Decker
Athena Decker worked on the original design of this website. She
now works for Americorps in the southern US, and continues to help with
Monarchs in the Classroom technical work.
"I like working with monarch butterflies; they are fascinating creatures. Working
in this lab has given me the opportunity to experience hands-on what research is
like, something that you can't get in class."
Jolene Lushine
Jolene Lushine graduated from the U of MN with a Bachelor of Science
in Biology in the Spring of 2002. She stepped into the monarch world in the summer
of 2000 when she was hired as a field assistant and spent a majority of her summer
monitoring monarchs in cornfields. She continued to contribute to monarch research
by working on a summer Undergraduate Research Opportunity Project to determine if
energy availability had an impact on male monarch mating success. Jolene is currently
embarking on a new career in medical technology, but still finds time to help out
at the Insect Fair every year.
Brij Bhasin
Brij Bhasin graduated with an Undergraduate degree in Computer
Science in December 2003 and worked on the MITC website and Monarch Store.