Instructors

Hal Cohen has taught field ecology and ornithology at College of DuPage for 35 years. He has led field trips in search of birds on every continent, including Antarctica. His studies of migrating Swainson’s Hawks have broken ground for new understandings of this threatened species in California.

Ernie Cowan is a photographer, journalist, and newest member of the ABF Board of Trustees. He brings to us a wealth of experience, gleaned from decades of exploring the backcountry of San Diego County, including Anza-Borrego Desert State Park.

Larry Hendrickson is a self-taught botanist who has been studying the plants of the local mountains and the desert for over twenty years. He was a participant in a five-year study of three state-listed rare and endangered plants in Cuyamaca Valley and was a participant in the botanical resource inventory of ABDSP and Mt. San Jacinto State Park. He is a field associate for the department of botany of the San Diego Natural History Museum and has worked on various resource management projects for the Colorado Desert District.

Bradford Hollingsworth, Ph.D., has been the curator of the Department of Herpetology at the San Diego Natural History Museum since 1999. His research focuses on the morphological and molecular systematics of amphibians and reptiles from southern California and Baja California. He studies the evolutionary history of isolated populations, including species restricted to oases, mountaintops, and islands in both the Pacific Ocean and Gulf of California. Brad also oversees the Museum’s amphibian and reptile research collection, which has over 73,500 individually catalogued specimens dating back to 1891.

Joe and Donna Hopkins moved to Borrego Springs over ten years ago. Since then, they have earned certificates in desert ecology from UC Riverside and have studied at the Zzyzx Desert Studies Center. Both became Park Volunteers for the ABDSP six years ago. Joe's programs have featured many desert animals and, since retiring from the school district, he now works as an Environmental Scientist for California State Parks. Donna still teaches in Borrego, but has found time to participate in Earthwatch projects studying lizards and tortoises, and volunteers for the Bighorn Sheep Count and the Christmas Bird Count.

Fred Jee has been a California State Park ranger from 1974 until his retirement in 2008. He has spent over 33 years in ABDSP patrolling and interpreting landscapes and geology of the park to thousands of visitors. His background is physical geology/geomorphology with a minor in geology from CSU at Hayward.

Paul Johnson has lived and worked in Borrego Springs and Anza-Borrego Desert State Park since 1973. During that time he has worked as a Park Naturalist, professional tour guide, photographer and photography instructor. He currently works for the Colorado Desert District as an Environmental Services Intern, conducting field research and photographic monitoring. He lives with his partner Sonja, and together they provide staff services for their cat Billie.

Lowell and Diana Lindsay are the co-authors of the Anza-Borrego Desert Region: A Guide to the State Park and Adjacent Areas published by Wilderness Press and now in its 5th edition. Lowell is also the co-author of the Geology of Anza-Borrego and the co-editor of Fossil Treasures of the Anza-Borrego Desert. He is a former Navy Survival School instructor. Diana is the author of Anza-Borrego A to Z: People, Places, and Things and is a trustee of ABFI. She is also a Canyoneer with the San Diego Natural History Museum.

Callie Mack lives and works in San Diego. She has a B.S. in Biology from Cleveland State University, and attended Mesa College and UCSD Extension for illustration and graphic design classes. She works in a variety of media, and has created art for educational software, banner designs and logos, detailed scientific illustrations, and environmental-awareness posters for City of San Diego Parks. She is currently working closely with educator Pat Flanagan and the Desert Protective Council to design and illustrate the Salton Basin Living Laboratory curriculum, a desert nature education program for teachers and students in the Salton Basin area.

Dennis Mammana has delivered the wonder and mystery of the cosmos to audiences around the world for more than three decades. He is the author of six books on popular astronomy, and writes the nationally syndicated column “Stargazers” that appears weekly in the San Diego Union-Tribune. As an accomplished sky photographer, he is an invited member of TWAN — “The World at Night”—an international team of the most highly-acclaimed sky photographers on the planet. With infectious enthusiasm and breathtaking imagery, Dennis has enlightened and inspired audiences on six continents, and is a frequently invited guest on both radio and television. He is a full-time resident of Borrego Springs where he writes and lectures about—and, of course, photographs—the clear dark skies of the Anza-Borrego Desert. You may visit him online at dennismammana.com.

Barry Martin, Founder of the San Diego Tracking Team and Western Tracking Institute, began tracking for fun at a young age in the woods of the Pacific Northwest. Over the last twenty years he pursued the skill more seriously receiving a Tracker 3 rating recently during the Cybertracker Tracker Evaluation administered by Mark Elbroch.

John McDonald received critical acclaim for Cotton Eyed Joe, his first internationally-recognized documentary, while still a cinema student at USC. He produced, directed and co-wrote The Youngest Victim, a documentary that aired as an ABC Prime Time Special and won numerous awards, including four Emmys. His short version of Ghost Mountain received several awards and was featured in MountainFilm at Telluride. He is currently completing Children of the Pear Garden, a documentary about the dying art of Chinese Opera.

Jayah Faye Paley is an educator, mobility coach and personal trainer. She's the creator of the only comprehensive education on how to use poles - 2 DVDS: POLES for Hiking, Trekking & Walking & POLES for Balance & Mobility. She teaches pole, walking & fitness seminars for National Parks, senior centers, Parkinson's, MS, and peripheral neuropathy groups, and leads hikes for the Sierra Club. Her company and websites focus on helping people to improve mobility and to more completely enjoy their outdoor experiences and lives. A breast cancer survivor, Jayah founded and helps run a Lymphedema Education & Exercise Group through her local hospital. Jayah lives in Northern CA and loves exploring Anza-Borrego; you can visit her informative website (and see photos from some of her visits to our desert): www.AdventureBuddies.net.

Richard Reading, Ph.D., is the Director of Conservation Biology at the Denver Zoological Foundation, a department he founded in 1996. He is also an Associate Research Professor at the University of Denver, where he teaches and advises graduate students. Dr. Reading earned his Ph.D. in Wildlife Ecology from Yale University in 1993 and holds 3 Master’s degrees from Yale, a B.S. in Biology from Trinity College (Hartford), and studied at the Duke University Marine Laboratory. Rich serves on the boards of directors of the Argali Wildlife Research Center (Mongolia), Idea Wild, and Mongolian Conservation Coalition (President), and the advisory boards of the Center for Native Ecosystems, Southern Plains Land Trust, and the Grasslands Foundation. He has published >100 technical publications in several journals and books; written or edited 10 books, dissertations, or special issues of journals; and produced dozens of popular articles, abstracts, and book reviews. Dr. Reading has conducted research or consulted on conservation projects in several countries on 5 continents, primarily the Great Plains of the U.S. and the Gobi Desert of Mongolia over the past decade or so. A major focus of Rich's research has been on developing interdisciplinary approaches to conservation. As such he and his colleagues have conducted research into population ecology, developing monitoring and management techniques, human values and attitudes toward wildlife and conservation, and conservation policy.

Paul Remeika is a retired State Park Ranger at Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, and field expert on Anza-Borrego's geology and paleontology. He is author of the best-seller "Geology of Anza-Borrego: Edge of Creation", has edited several publications, and recently authored three chapters in the paleontology book, Fossil Treasures of the Anza-Borrego Desert. Paul is credited with many important fossil discoveries and has contributed extensively to the understanding of the western Salton Trough region. He is actively working on revising the stratigraphy of the area, and publishing an age control of the Borrego Badlands. He is currently an instructor for the College of Borrego Foundation-Palomar College, teaching geology and paleontology of the Anza-Borrego area.

Roger Riolo is a Certified Interpretive Trainer and former Interpretive Program Manager at Newberry National Volcanic Monument. He is now an independent interpretive trainer and consultant. He teaches Interpretation at Central Oregon Community College and is serving as Director of Region 10 for the National Association for Interpretation.

Phillip Roullard is a professional photographer with a BA from Brooks Institute of Photography, who also works for California State Parks. Phil has taught workshops & classes for UCSD Extension, San Diego State Extension, Adventure 16 and the San Diego Natural History Museum. His published work includes: National Geographic books, Audubuon calendars, Audubon Field Guides, BBC Wildlife, San Diego ZooNooz and Time magazine. You may view his work at www.philliproullardphotography.com.

Joan S. Schneider, Ph.D., has extensive experience in the archaeology of the Colorado and Mojave deserts. Her particular research interests focus on geoarchaeology as well as settlement patterns and subsistence practices of early peoples of arid lands. Dr. Schneider is especially interested in every day tasks of women as they are expressed in the prehistoric archaeological record as well as the archaeology and anthropology of stone quarries and the people who worked them. Also considered an expert on the archaeology of the desert tortoise, she has published in international, national, regional, and local professional journals. Since 1987, she has taught classes at the Desert Study Center at Zzyzx and, since 2001 has been an Associate State Archaeologist in the Colorado Desert District of California State Parks.

Scott Tremor has been on staff with the San Diego Natural History Museum’s since 2004, following 16 years of working with the mammal collection at the San Diego Zoo. He has 20 years of experience in mammal trapping and monitoring, working with rodents, bats, and carnivores and 4 years experience with herps at long-term monitoring projects at MCAS Miramar and San Felipe Valley. He has overseen biological inventories (bird, mammal, herps), conducted studies of wildlife corridors, and taught classes in mammal identification, biology, and tracking. Since 2003 he has organized and supervised studies of the effects of wildfire on mammals in San Diego County sponsored by the Joint Fire Science Program and Cleveland National Forest. He is also a principal investigator on the San Diego County Mammal Atlas, to be published in 2008.

Sue Wade is an Associate State Archeologist for the Colorado Desert District. She has worked in cultural resource management for over twenty-five years, completing studies in anthropology, history and prehistoric and historic archeology.

Michael Wangler holds a MS degree in Geography from the University of California, Riverside, where he studied the fire ecology and biogeography of arid and semi-arid ecosystems in southern California. He presently serves as the coordinator of the Earth Sciences Program at Cuyamaca College, where he teaches undergraduate geography and geology courses. Michael discovered the Anza-Borrego desert over 20 years ago on a camping trip with some friends, and has been captivated by its diversity, beauty and magic ever since. He has spent countless weekends exploring the canyons, climbing the peaks, and getting to know the plants, animals, and dynamic landscapes of Anza-Borrego. Michael has a passion for California native plants, and has been botanizing in the mountains and deserts of southern California for over 2 decades. He lives with his wife and 3 daughters in Alpine, CA, and has been teaching field courses for ABFI since 2005.

Claude N. Warren, Ph.D., is considered to be one of the foremost archaeologists working in the California deserts today. He has published syntheses of the prehistory of the desert regions in both the Smithsonian Institution "Handbook of the North American Indians, Vol. 11 and in the landmark book "California Archaeology." Although retired from teaching (Professor Emeritus, Department of Anthropology, University of Nevada, Las Vegas), Dr. Warren continues his research interests in the deserts and in the San Diego coastal area. He has published well over 100 papers in professional journals and taught archaeological field schools for many years. He is particularly interested in the history of archaeological theory and the earlier periods of human existence in the desert regions. He has worked with many of the foremost archaeologists of our time.