Executive

Executive

Inge-Jean Hansen - President-Elect
Joanna Burgar – President
Jason T Fisher – Past President
Rory Fogarty- Treasurer
Erin Blythe – Secretary and Co-Chair of Student Affairs
Alexia Constantinou – Director and Co-Chair of Conservation Affairs
Cole Burton - Director and Chair of WildCAM
Julie Thomas – Director and Co-Chair of Communications
Kiirsti Owen – Director and Co-Chair of Communications
Jamie Clarke - Director and Co-Chair of Student Affairs
Myles Lamont – Director
Isabel Giguere – Director
Keaton Allan - Director
Ceryne Staples - Director
Emerald Arthurs - Director
Aiden Brushett - Director
Ralph Heinrich - Director
Chris Dairmont - Director
Jadzia Porter - Director

Inge-Jean Hansen - President-Elect

Inge-Jean Hansen is a registered professional biologist who lives in northeastern BC. Inge-Jean is currently a Senior Ecosystem Biologist with the BC Government and the majority of her experience is in terrestrial mammals and songbirds although she specializes in bats and fishers. Inge-Jean has worked as a wildlife biologist in northern areas of Canada (including the Yukon and NWT) for over 20 years and has been a member of our parent organization for almost as long. Outside of wildlife ecology, Inge-Jean has a small scale farm and volunteers on community boards focused on health, natural history, and sport.

Joanna Burgar - President

Joanna Burgar is the provincial Carnivore Conservation Specialist with the BC Ministry of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship, leading conservation and research on mesocarnivores. She did her BSc at UVic, MSc at Oxford, PhD at Murdoch Uni (Australia), and a post-doc at UVic and UBC, with focuses on resource management, conservation biology, and restoration ecology. Joanna’s experience spans bats, caribou, and leatherback sea turtles, and she has served on the WildCAM advisory committee since its inception. She has been active in The Wildlife Society for nearly a decade, including two years as a Director with ACTWS and three years with BCTWS (Director, President-Elect, and now President). Jo enjoys mentoring emerging wildlife professionals and co-supervising graduate students as an adjunct professor.

Jason T Fisher - Past-President

Jason (PhD, UVic; MSc, UAlberta; BScH, Carleton) is Director of the University of Victoria’s Applied Conservation Macro Ecology (ACME) Lab. His research focuses on how mammals respond to landscape and climate change across western Canada, from coastal and mountain systems to boreal and Arctic environments. He has worked with a wide range of species—including bears, canids, caribou, and mustelids—with a particular fondness for wolverines. Jason has authored over 75 publications and regularly collaborates with governments, industry, and agencies to support applied conservation decision-making. A long-time member of The Wildlife Society, he has held leadership roles in Alberta and BC, serves on COSEWIC’s Terrestrial Mammals Specialist Subcommittee, and is a Senior Editor at Ecology & Evolution. When not tracking mammals, he’s usually chasing salmon and halibut.

Rory Fogarty - Treasurer
Rory Fogarty is a Registered Professional Biologist based in the central interior of British Columbia where he works with a wide variety of fish and wildlife species. He has participated in and led several large-scale research and inventory projects on ungulates and mesocarnivores, and he completed a Master’s degree through Thompson Rivers University with a project looking at the factors affecting the declines being seen in the Columbian population of fishers in the interior of BC. While very much a generalist when it comes to his love of wildlife, Rory has a particular fondness for critters in Family Mustelidae.

Erin Blythe - Secretary & Co-Chair of Student Affairs

Erin is a MSc student in the ACME lab at the University of Victoria and has been involved with The Wildlife Society since her tenure as President of the Thompson Rivers University Student Chapter. She started with BCTWS as Secretary and has recently taken on the additional role of Co-Chair of the Student Engagement committee. In her free time, she enjoys outdoor adventures, reading, and spending time with family and her dog, Sage.

Alexia Constantinou - Director & Co-Chair of Student Affairs

Alexia is a PhD candidate in the ACME Lab at the University of Victoria, sponsored by Francis Johnson Jr. from Alkali Resource Management and the Mesocarnivore Team at the Ministry of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship. Her research focuses on BC's Columbian fisher population, porcupine uncertainty, their declines, responses to landscape change, and ways to improve habitat by working with First Nations, fire, and industry. This year, Alexia is serving as Co-Chair of the Conservation Affairs Committee for BCTWS. When she’s not in the field or working, Alexia spends most of her time paddling, skiing or trying to stay rubber side down on a mountain bike.

Cole Burton - Director & Chair of WildCAM

Cole Burton is an Associate Professor in the Department of Forest Resources Management at the University of British Columbia, and the Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Terrestrial Mammal Conservation. He is the Principal Investigator of the Wildlife Coexistence Lab (WildCo) and leads the WildCAM network that brings together researchers and practitioners using camera traps to survey wildlife in western Canada. Cole’s research focuses on developing rigorous approaches to biodiversity monitoring, assessing interactions between human and animal communities, and evaluating the effectiveness of wildlife management.

Julie Thomas - Director & Co-Chair of Communications

Julie is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Northern British Columbia. She is leading a research project on predator-prey dynamics of cougars and declining woodland caribou. Previously, Julie completed her MSc at the University of Calgary, where she used camera traps to document effects of forest disturbance on mammal communities. She has professional experience in research and conservation planning for species at risk, from bats to bison and grizzly bears. Julie is based in the coast mountains of northwest BC on Tsimshian territory. When not tracking cougars, you can find her backcountry skiing, mountain biking, or sea kayaking.

Kiirsti Owen - Director & Co-Chair of Communications

Kiirsti (she/her) is a wildlife biologist based on Vancouver Island. She earned her BSc in Ecological Restoration from BCIT in 2015 and her MSc from the University of Windsor in 2020, where she studied how birds respond to regenerating tropical dry forests in Costa Rica. She recently completed her PhD at the University of New Brunswick, focusing on wetland birds and anthropogenic habitat change. Kiirsti works as a Senior Wildlife Biologist with Keefer Ecological Services Ltd. and joined the BCTWS Board in 2025. She sometimes takes on contracts teaching university courses or leading birding tours and spends as much of her free time outdoors as possible, happily wandering with her binoculars.

Jamie Clarke - Director

Jamie is a Masters student in the ACME lab at the University of Victoria, under the supervision of Dr. Jason Fisher. She is a new TWS member and serving on the executive board for the first time! In partnership with the BC Government and the Wildlife Coexistence lab at UBC, Jamie is testing camera traps as a tool to estimate big ungulate densities. When she’s not chipping away at her Masters or serving on the board, she’s doing other fun stuff – like skiing, running, biking and knitting.

Myles Lamont - Director

Myles is a wildlife biologist, zoologist, and naturalist from British Columbia’s west coast. He is a Registered Professional Biologist, Certified Wildlife Biologist and Ecologist, and Articling Agrologist, but in real life, is mostly a hobby farmer. Since 2012, he has operated his own wildlife consulting firm, TerraFauna, with broad professional interests and a strong passion for protecting wild spaces and biodiversity. His research interests include species at risk, shifting baseline syndrome, ecosystem services, and wildlife habitat mitigation. Myles holds a BSc in Biology and Ecology from the University of the Fraser Valley, is a past Wildlife Preservation Canada fellow, and is active in several conservation organizations. When not stuck in front of a computer, you can find him getting dirt under his fingernails or skiing up some of the local backcountry mountains.

Isabel Giguere – Director

Isabel is an MSc student in the Applied Conservation Macro Ecology Lab at the University of Victoria. Her research uses camera-trap data to examine how reproduction and immigration influence short-term population dynamics of urban black-tailed deer. She holds a BSc in Zoology from the University of Guelph (2019) and has since worked on projects focused on human–wildlife coexistence and conflict mitigation. Isabel has contributed to urban deer research with the Urban Wildlife Stewardship Society since 2020, as well as studies on vessel impacts to southern resident killer whales, sloth reintroduction success in Costa Rica, and baboon foraging patterns in South Africa. Outside of research, she enjoys aerial performance arts, scuba diving, hiking, and kayaking.

Keaton Allan – Director
Keaton is a Thompson Rivers University Graduate, who has spent his post-secondary career working with industry, consulting firms, and Indigenous governments & organizations to protect and conserve the beautiful environment of British Columbia. He is an RPBio by trade, but has worked with many disciplines such as fisheries, wildlife, reclamation, archaeology, and water quality. His experience spans across many sectors including mining & mineral exploration, renewable energy, oil & gas, and forestry.

Ceryne Staples – Director

Ceryne Staples, RPBio is a Senior Ecosystems Biologist with Simpcw Resources LLP, based in Simpcwúl̓ecw. She brings more than 20 years of experience in applied ecology, including work in wildlife, wetlands, species at risk, and conservation planning. Her background spans environmental consulting and conservation work within Indigenous organizations, with an increasing emphasis on land-based and relational approaches to environmental practice. Ceryne is motivated by curiosity about connections between people, animals, and place, and how these can inform grounded environmental decision-making. She is a Director-at-Large with the BC Chapter of The Wildlife Society.

Emerald Arthurs – Director

Emerald is a graduate student in the ACME lab at the University of Victoria, supervised by Dr. Jason Fisher. Her research focuses on using camera traps to estimate density of large mammals and understanding the impacts of forestry disturbance on mammal community interactions. In the past she has contributed to large mammal monitoring projects on Vancouver Island and the Rockies. Emerald is new to the TWS executive board in 2025 and is excited to get involved and learn! When she is not working on her research, she is running, climbing or exploring a beach or mountain.

Aiden Brushett – Director

Aidan (he/him) is a PhD student in the Applied Conservation Macroecology lab at the University of Victoria, supervised by Dr. Jason Fisher. His research uses camera traps to understand boreal mammal community structure and predator-prey dynamics in areas of the western boreal forest affected by industrial oil and gas extraction. He is a new TWS board member for 2025-2026.

Ralph Heinrich – Director

Ralph is a Registered Professional Biologist in British Columbia with over 30 years of experience in wildlife biology and ecology. His work spans avian ecology, wildlife inventory, habitat assessments, and environmental impact assessments across research, monitoring, and consulting projects for First Nations, industry, and municipal, provincial, and federal governments. He owned and operated Wildtech Biological Services for 18 years before joining Triton Environmental Consultants in 2012. His recent work includes Species at Risk projects ranging from grizzly bear DNA studies to artificial snake hibernacula construction. Much of Ralph’s career has focused on working with First Nations as a technical advisor, mentor, and capacity builder. Outside of work, he enjoys mountain biking, skiing, and hiking.

Chris Darimont – Director

Chris Darimont is a professor and the Raincoast Chair of Applied Conservation Science at the University of Victoria. He and his students practise community-engaged research with Indigenous communities on the BC coast, studying both terrestrial and marine wildlife. As an additional way to escape the ivory tower, Chris also serves as a science director for the Raincoast Conservation Foundation.

Jadzia Porter – Director

Jadzia recently completed her Bachelor of Science in Biological Sciences (Honours) with a Minor in Statistics at Simon Fraser University. Passionate about road ecology and habitat connectivity, Jadzia has enjoyed working in these fields since 2022, and completed her Honours research on American Badgers’ use of drainage culverts. Her professional experience includes creating maps in GIS software, conducting statistical analyses in R, and using camera traps to monitor wildlife presence and movement. Although her work tends to focus on terrestrial wildlife, Jadzia has a love for the ocean and in her spare time can be found scuba diving or searching for critters in tide pools.

PHOTO CREDITS: BLACK BEAR, JASON T FISHER; PEOPLE , @THE OWNERS

OUr Executive Board