About the project

Research team bios

Craig Benson

Craig Benson is a natural resources professional and a key collaborator in decades of project efforts in Humboldt Bay. He is a professional facilitator and certified mediator through Cal Poly Humboldt’s former Institute of Alternative Dispute Resolution (ISADR) and practiced through the Center for the Resolution of Environmental Disputes (CRED) in Bayside, CA. In this role, Craig has served as Co-Coordinator of the Humboldt Bay/Mad River Watershed and as a co-facilitator of the Humboldt Bay Ecosystem Based Management effort. Additionally, as former Director of the Natural Resources Division of the Redwood Community Action Agency, Craig has been intimately involved in multiple ecosystem-based and sea-level rise/climate change projects in the Humboldt Bay Estuary over the last two decades. Some of this work included compensatory ecosystem mitigation projects for and with PG&E at the Humboldt Bay Generating Station, Martin Slough, and PALCO Marsh. Craig currently serves as a commissioner on the City of Eureka Planning Commission and as a full-time faculty member in the Dept. of Environmental Science & Management at Cal Poly Humboldt. 

Alec Brown

Alec Brown is a Natural Resources program graduate student at Cal Poly Humboldt and a winner of the prestigious 2023 Patricia O. McConkey Outstanding Graduate Student award. CSU COAST also awarded Alec with a 2022-23 Dr. Kenneth H. Coale Graduate Scholar Award. Alec studied as an undergraduate in the Department of Environmental Science and Management at Humboldt State, and has since developed an interest in the social dynamics of natural resource management and coastal resilience. While a student, Alec’s internship with Humboldt Baykeeper and service learning project with the Northcoast Environmental Center helped him explore the  intersections between governance and adaptation within the fields of energy and toxic sites. As a member of the 26th Watershed Stewards Program, Alec monitored endangered salmon populations, conducted outreach, planned events, and educated elementary students, enhancing his interdisciplinary approach to understanding environmental issues and solutions. Over the last six years living in the area, Alec has gained a deep appreciation for the North Coast and the people that live, work, and celebrate the natural systems that abound here.

Jen Marlow

Jen Marlow is an Assistant Professor of Environmental Law in the Department of Environmental Science and Management at Cal Poly Humboldt. Prior to joining Cal Poly Humboldt, Jen worked as an associate for Bessenyey & Van Tuyn, an environmental law firm in Anchorage, Alaska. Jen also worked as Executive Director of Three Degrees Warmer, a climate justice nonprofit that she co-founded; curator of Re-Locate, a transdisciplinary research collective partnering with Kivalina, Alaska, to support community-led and culturally specific village relocation planning; and co-owner of Re-Locate LLC, a small business that designed alternative waste recovery sanitation systems to serve climate-displaced communities. Jen received a Bachelor of Arts in Environmental Studies with a focus in literature from Middlebury College in Vermont in 2002, and a law degree from the University of Washington School of Law in Seattle in 2010. She is licensed to practice law in Washington.

JULIE SORFLEET

Julie Sorfleet completed her undergraduate degree in Geography and Spanish with a minor in Geospatial Information Systems and Technologies at UCLA in 2019. Since graduating, Julie has been working in various GIS and remote sensing roles ranging from a GIS technician for a tribe in Southern Oregon to a UAV pilot for a non-profit in Florida.

Contributing Investigators

Amelia Vergel del Dios

Alexandra Toyofuku

Chloe Pieper-Wasen

Mike Pero

Abigail Lowell

Emily Tornroos

PHOTO CREDITS

Aldaron Laird

Amelia Vergel del Dios

Alexandra Toyofuku

PG&E / NRC documents

web design

Lissie Rydz