Troy Corman

Troy has been an avid birder since high school. Raised in rural south-central Pennsylvania, he moved to Arizona in 1980 to pursue higher education and new adventures. For several years he conducted wildlife inventories on the upper San Pedro River for the Bureau of Land Management. He has worked for the nongame Branch of the Arizona Game and Fish Department since 1990, conducting surveys and coordinating projects for species of concern. He coordinated the Arizona Breeding Bird Atlas project from its inception. His passion for birds has taken him as far away as Peru and East Africa, and he plans to increase his world travels.

Marceline VandeWater

Marceline grew up in the Netherlands where she studied botany. Later she became interested in birds, then butterflies and now, natural history in general. She leads bird and butterfly walks for the local chapters of the Audubon Society and for Arizona State Parks. She also works on botanical illustrations “Grand Canyon Project” at the Desert Botanical Garden and has provided photographs for several publications. She loves to spend time with her husband and 2 grown kids. Other hobbies include hiking, kayaking, skiing, cooking and traveling.

Edwin Juarez

Edwin developed a passion for wildlife and nature as a kid growing up in a rural community of his native El Salvador. He graduated with an MS in Wildlife and Fisheries from Texas A&M University where he studied Golden-cheeked Warblers and Black-capped Vireos. Currently, he coordinates the Arizona Bird Conservation Initiative (formerly Partners in Flight), for the AZ Game and Fish Department. As the coordinator he facilitates the planning and implementation of various bird conservation projects including Important Bird Areas, long-term monitoring of priority species, and IMBD activities. He also promotes the conservation of birds in their Mexican wintering grounds through collaboration in several binational projects. Before moving to Arizona, he worked for a local health department in Houston where he tracked mosquito-borne diseases in urban bird populations. Growing up in Houston as an immigrant from El Salvador, and now having worked as a bird biologist for over 8 years in two major urban centers (Houston and Phoenix), he has a strong interest in identifying and implementing approaches that better connect Latino communities to nature.

Doug Jenness

From the time he received his first bird book at age six, Doug has been interested in birds and natural history. During his high school years he was a nature counselor at a summer camp in Wisconsin. For many years professional work restricted his birding activity to brief excursions while visiting large cities in other countries and the United States. As a “big city” birder his favorite is New York City where he lived for more than 25 years. In the 1990s he joined the Minnesota Ornithologists’ Union and contributed to its journal, the Loon. He helped establish a new Christmas Bird Count in an underbirded area. In 2002 he moved to Tucson where he has been actively birding and has led Audubon Society field trips. 

Steve Ganley

Steve first started birding while living in Southern California. He attended the University of California at Long Beach and although his main area of study was botany, in winter when there were no flowers, his attention turned to Ornithology. His interests are in the status and distribution of birds but he still likes to have fun doing Big Days and keeping County lists. He has led field trips for various Audubon Societies in California and Arizona and in Sonora, Mexico.
Another area of his interests are the Christmas Bird Counts that are done every year and Steve has been the compiler for the Puerto Penasco (Rocky Point) Count in Sonora, Mexico for 20 years and is the National Audubon Society’s editor for all the Christmas Counts taken in Arizona and Nevada. Besides being the membership chairman for the AZFO, he is working on a Digital Flora of Arizona’s plants.

Janet Witzeman

Janet began birding as a child with a favorite aunt who took her on the Sunday morning birdwalks at Shaker Lakes in Cleveland, Ohio. Her interest in birds was later rekindled at those same Shaker Lakes by her birder husband-to-be. Since moving to Phoenix in 1958, she has served in several roles for the Maricopa Audubon Society. She organized and was co-compiler of the Phoenix Christmas Bird Count for 12 years in the late sixties and seventies. Janet has been keeping records and writing the Field Observations column for the Cactus Wrendition for 37 years. During the seventies and eighties she was a Southwest Regional Editor for American Birds for 12 years. She was publisher and co-editor of Continental Birdlife. A charter member of the American Birding Association, she has served on the board of directors of the ABA as well as Western Field Ornithologists. Janet has been secretary or assistant secretary of the Arizona Bird Committee for 31 years

John Yerger

A Senior Guide at Adventure Birding, John Yerger graduated from Penn State with a degree in Wildlife and Fisheries Science. While John enjoys every bird from the drabbest common resident to the most dazzingly plumed rarity, he is equally engaged by many other aspects of natural history. He has led trips from the boreal forests of Canada to the subtropics of Mexico, but primarily enjoys living and birding in southeastern Arizona. John serves as the Field Expedition Chair for the Arizona Field Ornithologists, volunteers as a Field Trip Leader for the Tucson Audubon Society, and compiles the Tucson Rare Bird Alert. Website

Lauren Harter

Lauren came to Arizona in 2004 to attend Northern Arizona University and was immediately impressed by the birding community and the richness of Arizona’s avifauna. She first became involved with AZFO through the Seasonal Reports, as compiler for the Coconino region. Though her recent work as a field biologist has taken her across North and Central America, Lauren has remained interested in the status and distribution of Arizona’s birds, particularly northern Arizona and the lower Colorado River valley.

Pierre Deviche

Pierre grew up in Belgium, where he received a Ph.D. in biology. After doing research for three years at Oregon State University, he moved to the University of Alaska Fairbanks where he served on the faculty of the Department of Biology and Wildlife for 11 years. He moved to Arizona in 1999 and is currently Professor of Environmental Physiology at Arizona State University in Tempe. Most of his current research concerns physiological and behavioral adaptations of birds, particularly passerines, to extreme environments such as the Sonoran Desert. In the past ten years, his students and he published approximately 40 scientific articles in professional journals. Before coming to the US in 1985, Pierre birded extensively throughout Europe. He has birded also in India, Thailand, Morocco, China, and Costa Rica. He and his wife live in Phoenix, Arizona. He has a keen interest in odonates and photography, and regularly leads local bird- and dragonfly-watching trips. Pierre's Academic Website

Michael C. Moore

Mike has been a Biology professor for 30 years. He learned a love of the outdoors from his father who was an avid outdoorsman and fisherman. Mike started birding in Massachusetts when he was eleven. He worked at Manomet Bird Observatory in Massachusetts in college and then completed his PhD in Zoology at the University of Washington on White-crowned Sparrow breeding behavior and endocrinology. He has published over a 100 papers in scientific journals, is an elected member of the AOU and has been a member of the ABA since its inception.  Mike was on the faculty at ASU for 27 years, but recently moved to the University of Delaware.  Nevertheless, he maintains a keen interest and involvement in Arizona Ornithology.  Mike also maintains a web site on the Birds of the Gilbert Water Ranch.   Mike's Academic Website