People Type: Staff

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Schueler became Manomet’s fourth President in April 2020.

Lizzie’s career spans the nonprofit, corporate, and government sectors, with a particular emphasis on building and sustaining mission-driven public/private partnerships. Most recently, Lizzie served as Vice President, Markets and Supply Chains, overseeing World Wildlife Fund’s work to eliminate, reduce, or mitigate the key threats caused by commodity production globally. Previously, Lizzie worked for Microsoft Corporation where she led two different corporate social responsibility programs, first in the Middle East and Africa, and then globally. Her work at Microsoft included rolling out the Partners in Learning program in the Middle East and Africa hiring and leading 12+ staff in the region. She then led the Government Security Program globally, and a novel internet safety program requiring collaboration with national law enforcement agencies, globally. During her tenure at the United States Agency for International Development, she led technology partnerships with private companies under the Global Development Alliance.

A Massachusetts native, she is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. She is a self-professed “amateur yet enthusiastic” birder, and an avid outdoorswoman enjoying hiking, biking, kayaking, fly-fishing, and Nordic skiing.

Lisa joined the Shorebird Recovery Program at Manomet in 2008 and is responsible for a number of technical tasks in support of its mission. First, as a program associate, she maintained the WHSRN website, database, and social media outlets; developed and maintained the Site Assessment Tool database; created species- and site-based conservation mapping tools; provided shorebird data for WHSRN partners, and developed methods for using data in the strategies and action plans that WHSRN implements.

Currently, as the North American coordinator for the International Shorebird Survey, she develops and maintains the online ISS mapping tool, creates reports for Manomet scientists and partners, recruits and engages ISS volunteers through social media and newsletters, and finds creative ways to tell shorebird stories using ISS data.

Lisa holds an M.S. in Physics from the University of Arizona, and her background is in numerical analysis. After graduating with her M.S., she did data and image analysis on LIDAR systems for Arete Associates before helping to start a business with her future husband doing numerical analysis on ratings and viewing habits in public television.

Lisa is an avid birder. While living in Arizona, she coordinated the Tucson Christmas Bird Count and led field trips for the Tucson Audubon Society.  She currently leads trips for the South Shore Bird Club.

She is based at Manomet’s headquarters in Manomet, Massachusetts, where she works part-time with full-time dedication.

Marcela is native to Córdoba, Argentina, where she lives in Miramar de Ansenuza, a small town on the shore of Mar Chiquita Lake, one of the very first WHSRN sites (designated in 1989). She joined the WHSRN Executive Office team in 2019 as a Flyway Conservation Specialist, focused on the conservation of saline lakes. Among her activities, Marcela is working on an update of the Wilson’s Phalarope conservation plan and developing a protocol for boreal winter/austral summer surveys for the species. She is also working to strengthen the connections between communities and conservation efforts at inland salt lakes, with a primary focus on existing WHSRN sites. From 2014 until recently, Marcela was one of the two site representatives for Mar Chiquita Lake to the Argentine WHSRN Council.

Marcela has a degree in Biology from the National University of Córdoba (UNC), where she is currently undertaking PhD studies on the non-breeding ecology of Wilson’s Phalarope in central Argentina. Her odyssey with phalaropes began in 2012 at Great Salt Lake (Utah), where she spent the summer working on breeding ecology and habitat use as part of the Linking Communities initiative, sponsored by the U.S Fish & Wildlife Service, Rio Tinto, Weber State University and BirdLife International. In 2013 she received a scholarship from National Audubon Society and the Weber State University to continue her work with the species at Great Salt Lake.

In recent years Marcela has been involved in many education and outreach activities in central Argentina, with the goal of involving her community in conservation activities and raising awareness of the importance of WHSRN sites for biodiversity preservation.

Salvadora is a native of Nicaragua. She joined the Manomet team in 2019 as a Shorebird Conservation Specialist with the WHSRN Executive Office. She is responsible for exploring opportunities to coordinate and promote best management practices in shrimp aquaculture and salt production to benefit shorebirds. She helps coordinate the Migratory Shorebird Project in Central America, in addition to the Central American Waterbird Census, and works to promote the conservation, protection, and management of habitat for shorebirds in Central America.

Salvadora has worked in bird conservation for 18 years. She coordinated the Institute for Bird Population’s MoSI program in Central America (Monitoring Neotropical Migrants in Winter, MoSI by its Spanish acronym). She worked with Fauna and Flora International, where she was the coordinator of the Management, Conservation, and Climate Change Adaptation program on the island of Ometepe. She led the process to establish Ometepe as a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve. Later, she worked with the organization ICCO Cooperation on the Mesoamerican Alliance of People and Forests initiative, facilitating the development and implementation of forest management and indigenous land rights projects. Salvadora is a founding partner of Quetzalli Nicaragua where, through the support of BirdLife International and US Forest service, and later the WHSRN Executive Office, she coordinated the first shorebird monitoring efforts in the Gulf of Fonseca. These surveys led to the nomination of the Delta del Estero Real as a WHSRN Site. Recently, in coordination with National Audubon Society and the WHSRN Executive Office, she completed an assessment of the shrimp aquaculture industry in Central America and its overlap with key areas for shorebirds.

Why Manomet?

I work at Manomet because I believe that the solution to the environmental, social and economic problems of our world is in the hands of human beings. I firmly believe that decision-making must be based on field science and knowledge management. I am proud to be part of an organization whose mission and focus is based on human relations and on-the-ground science to conserve our biodiversity and create a sustainable world.

Alan is a Conservation Biologist at Manomet, where he is involved in a variety of science initiatives. His current priorities include the expansion of Manomet’s shorebird research in eastern Massachusetts, as well as contributing to Whimbrel conservation efforts in the Atlantic Flyway. Alan also helps manage science and education at Manomet Observatory, with a particular interest in monitoring songbird populations at their long-term banding station and the restoration of retired cranberry bogs into wetland habitat.