California Bird Atlas
Core Team
Van Pierszalowski
Executive Director, CBA
Van's childhood was split between Cambria, CA, and Kodiak Island, AK, where he worked on his father's commercial salmon fishing boat for 8 years. After earning a degree in Anthropology at UC Berkeley, he embarked on a successful career as a songwriter and musician, appearing on TV shows like Late Night with Conan O'Brien and CBS News Sunday Morning. Now living in LA, he's fallen in love with the area's varied habitats and stunning vagrant birds, and is continually inspired by its diverse birding community. In 2023, Van completed a California Big Year, recording 503 species—becoming only the second birder to surpass 500 in a single year in the state. He is an eBird Regional Reviewer for Los Angeles County, and leads trips for several local organizations, including Los Angeles Birders and the Pasadena Audubon Society.
Reach out: van@californiabirdatlas.org
Morgan Tingley, PhD
Chair, CBA Science Advisory Committee
Dr. Morgan Tingley is a Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California, Los Angeles. He joined the faculty at UCLA in 2020, after previously serving as an Assistant Professor at the University of Connecticut and as a David H. Smith Conservation Research Fellow at Princeton University. His research combines original field samples with ecological “big data” to understand how large-scale anthropogenic drivers of change affect geographic distributions and community interactions of birds over short to long timespans. This is his second statewide bird atlas, having been co-PI on the second Connecticut Bird Atlas from 2018–2022. In addition to his role at UCLA, Dr. Tingley is President-Elect of the American Ornithological Society (AOS).
For more information: The Tingley Lab.
Sam Safran, PdD
Science Director, CBA
Sam is an ecologist with more than a decade of experience applying science to guide ecosystem management and the conservation of biodiversity. Sam specializes in leveraging participatory science data (eBird, iNaturalist), statistical models, and geospatial analysis to assess species responses to changing landscapes. He is currently completing a PhD focused on understanding bird responses to habitat restoration and urban greening in human-dominated ecosystems. Prior to graduate school, Sam worked as an Environmental Scientist at the San Francisco Estuary Institute, where he led projects to support landscape-scale restoration, climate change adaptation, and ecological resilience across California. He holds a joint BA in Biology and Environmental Studies from Middlebury College in Vermont. Fellow eBirders—request a personalized “lifer map” from Sam here.
Reach out: sam@californiabirdatlas.org
Alecia Smith
Outreach Coordinator, CBA
Alecia is the Senior Communications Coordinator at Audubon California, where they lead digital communications. Based in LA, Alecia is a bird photographer and former Beach Naturalist Coordinator with Ventura Audubon’s Shorebird Recovery Program, where they spent 5 years documenting shorebirds, mentoring volunteer naturalists, and engaging local communities in coastal bird conservation. In 2021, she completed a 10,000-mile solo road trip across the U.S. to deepen their connection with birds and the people who love them, an experience that sharpened their focus on conservation storytelling.
Megan Jankowski
Review Coordinator, CBA
Megan's experience with breeding birds started in 2008 as a seasonal nest searcher for Dr. Thomas E. Martin in the Mogollon Rim Snowmelt Draws Important Bird Area of Arizona. She loved it so much that she returned each year, eventually joining full-time to supervise the project and manage over 25 years of data. After five seasons she returned to California and joined Lindsay Wildlife Experience to manage hospital volunteers. Megan is currently an asset management assistant at a Bay Area commercial real estate firm and a volunteer field trip leader for Golden Gate Bird Alliance. An avid eBirder and NestWatch user, she loves finding nests and contributing the monitoring data to these platforms.
Justyn Stahl
Review Coordinator, CBA
Justyn Stahl has been birding in California since moving to San Diego in 2008, "born too late" to contribute to Unitt's San Diego County Bird Atlas. From 2008 to 2023, he worked year-round on San Clemente Island, primarily as manager of the endangered San Clemente Loggerhead Shrike monitoring project. Extensive field work there lead to a number of important avian (co-)discoveries, culminating with The Birds of California's Channel Islands, with Paul Collins. On the mainland, his birding focused on San Diego, Imperial, and Los Angeles counties, though he traveled extensively throughout the state. Justyn has volunteered as an eBird editor for California, a regional compiler for North American Birds, a member and chair of the California Bird Records Committee, and a long-time compiler for the San Diego Christmas Bird Count. Since 2023, he has worked for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as the Wildlife Biologist for the San Diego National Wildlife Refuge Complex. He holds a Master's in interdisciplinary ecology from the University of Florida.