ENHS Speakers for 2026–2027
Talks start at 7:00pm on the dates listed and usually are held in room 221 Allen Hall, University of Oregon campus. See http://eugenenaturalhistorysociety.org/ for updates.
18 September 2026 Brooke Penaluna Willamette River Fishes
Brooke is a research fish biologist with the U.S. Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station. Her research focuses on understanding the effects of stressors and disturbances on fish and aquatic habitats. She is interested in everything about fish, trout, streams, and rivers. Ultimately, she wants to understand the ecological linkages among water, land, and people. Her work spans the globe from aquaculture farms in Chile to the coniferous forests of the Pacific Northwest.
16 October Michael W. Palmer Bug Hunting at the McKenzie Valley Bug Lab
After retiring in 2017 from the botany department at Oklahoma State University, Mike returned to his family roots in Blue River in the McKenzie River valley. Although he lost his family home in the Holiday Farm Fire, he is rebuilding, monitoring the changes in the plant communities, and continuing to pursue his interests in photography and the natural history of insects feeding on native wild plants.
20 November Kayla Fratt Remote Scentsing: Using Detection Dogs and Satellite Imagery to Understand Alaska’s Island Wolves
Kayla started working as an animal trainer in high school, training injured falcons for educational shows and racing homing pigeons. She received her dog behavior consulting certification in 2017 and is a member of the International Association of Animal Behavior Consultants. She is cofounder of the nonprofit organization K9 Conservationists. As a PhD student at Oregon State University, she is using her conservation detection dogs to answer questions about diet and movement among wolves in Alaska and wild felids in El Salvador.
11 December Nolan Clements A 50-Year Snapshot of Change in Oregon Coast Range Bird Communities
Nolan is a PhD student at Oregon State University, where his current research is focused on long-term community change in tropical forest bird communities, particularly the isolated forest fragments on Barro Colorado Island in central Panama. His early work was on wintering populations of forest birds in the Oregon Coast Range. He describes himself as bird obsessed and follows the happenings of the ornithological community. His training is in field techniques, including bird identification, point count surveys, and banding, and he spends much of his free time recreationally birding.
15 January 2027 Alex Nyers What Obsidian Can Tell Us
Alex is the owner and program director for Northwest Archaeometrics, Northwest Research Obsidian Studies Laboratory. His specialty is the use of technology to answer archaeological questions (archaeometry). His work includes examining the elemental makeup of stone tools to determine where they came from, creating and analyzing digital 3-D models of archaeological artifacts, and modeling where the people who made and used these artifacts may have lived.
19 February Leif Karlstrom Giant Aquifer of the Cascades
Leif is an earth scientist at the University of Oregon studying fluid motions in and on volcanoes and glaciers, landscape evolution, and geodynamics. Active projects include the eruption cycle, the Columbia River Flood Basalts, and supraglacial hydrology. Some of his recent wok involves estimation of the size of the Central Oregon aquifer, which supplies the McKenzie and Deschutes Rivers and holds 80 km3 of water. Leif is also a musician and maintains the Volcano Listening Project, which combines volcano music and data sonification tools as a bridge between research and art.
19 March Desirée Tullos Klamath River Dam Removal: What’s Next
Desirée is a professor of river engineering at Oregon State University. She and the team from her engineering lab and other Oregon State researchers are working with members of the local Tribes to monitor the impacts of the removal of four dams on the Klamath River and the restoration of almost 2,500 acres of land.
16 April Stephanie Hazen Backyard Butterflies and Conservation
Stephanie is a photographer, master gardener, melittologist, and retired veterinarian. Since 2017, Stephanie and her husband, Ray Temple, who are big supporters of monarch butterflies, have dispersed thousands of native milkweed plants. She will share some of the best ways to attract and support native butterflies and moths in your backyard. She will talk about basic requirements for butterflies to live and flourish and provide details about what the average gardener can do to support monarch butterflies throughout their life cycle, including planting locally adapted milkweeds and pollinator plants.
21 May Erin Pettit Thwaites Glacier, Antarctica
Erin is professor in the College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences at Oregon State University. She is also a National Geographic emerging explorer applying acoustic research with hydrophones to calving and melting glaciers. She has presented at TEDWomen on listening to glaciers and has created the Girls on Ice program to teach high school girls about glaciology, ecology, and mountaineering. She is a lead principal investigator on the TARSAN (Thwaites-Amundsen Regional Survey and Network Integrating Atmosphere-Ice-Ocean Processes) project where she and her team are measuring ocean circulation and thinning beneath the Thwaites Glacier.