The Steering Committee is tasked with developing and facilitating a long term vision and plan to advance the broader ecological forecasting community. The Steering Committee facilitates the EFI Strategic Plan and makes high-level decisions to support activities that will build our community of practice. Nominations for the next Steering Committee cohort will be accepted in February 2027.
Steering Committee Nomination Process and Terms
Anyone who is an EFI Member is allowed to be nominated or self-nominate to run for election. Nominees will be asked to provide a short (<1 page) statement about their goals for EFI and professional qualifications, which the election subcommittee will distribute prior to the elections. Find examples of previous candidate statements in the newsletters from 2026, 2025, 2024, 2023, and 2022.
Steering Committee terms are 2 years, with the committee meeting once a month, and an extended meeting once a year.
If you are not already a member, you are welcome to join the EFI community in this capacity by filling out this membership form.
See the current Steering Committee members below. Details about their terms and backgrounds will be shared in the April 2026 newsletter.
Jason McLachlan is an ex-officio non-voting member and Jody Peters provides administrative assistance.
2025-2026 Steering Committee Members
Michael leads the Near-term Ecological Forecasting Initiative and the PEcAn Project. He is the Director of the grassroots efforts of the Ecological Forecasting Initiative and the Chair of the EFI Steering Committee.
Cara is an ecophysiologist fascinated by research at the interface of animal energetics, behavior, and conservation, with key interests in how energy shapes patterns in ecology and influences species risk under human disturbance. She is a postdoctoral researcher and modelling the role of energetics in the emergence of life history patterns and population dynamics using physiological theory and agent-based modelling.
Quinn works to predict the future of forest and freshwater ecosystems by combining observations and ecosystem models using statistical techniques. He is the PI of the EFI Research Coordination Network and he is leading the NEON Ecological Forecasting Challenge. He is a non-voting member on the EFI Steering Committee.
John has three interests including (1) developing accessible software protocols and tools for data visualization - prior and post an ecological forecast, (2) applying mathematical and statistical methods for data assimilation and ecological forecasts, and (3) developing the first two with a keen eye for undergraduate interdisciplinary education, primarily focused through the lens of undergraduate mathematics.
Landscape, spatial forecasts of insects, fire, trees, and wildlife
Eric is a Quantitative Ecologist at the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON). He is interested in using metacommunity theory and long-term data to predict future trends in biodiversity.
Janet's work focuses on making Earth observations data accessible and operational for actionable and impactful decision support.
Jordan's research focuses on understanding and predicting the timing of toxin-producing cyanobacteria (harmful algal blooms) in aquatic ecosystems.
The Tandy Center for Ocean Forecasting is a computational oceanographic team at Bigelow Laboratory. We work with stakeholders to develop and deploy real-time ocean forecasting tools for industry, conservation, resource management, communities, and education. Our aim is for people to have access to tools and resources they need to use and deploy forecasts.
2025-2026 Ex-officio, non-voting Steering Committee Members
Krishna works on understanding and forecasting tropical tree growth dynamics. As a postdoctoral fellow with ForestGEO at the Smithsonian Institution, she works on a state space model of tree growth by fusing three days streams from two permanent plots- forest inventories, tree rings and annual dendroband measurements.
Alistair's research focus is on marine ecoforecasts for pelagic species, at seasonal time scales and marine heatwave forecasting.
Jason is using experiments, paleo observations, model prediction, and prior studies in a Bayesian assimilation framework strengthen predictive forecasting of salt marshes. Jason is a non-voting member on the EFI Steering Committee.
Jody is the Program Manager of EFI. She coordinates EFI activities to promote collaboration and communication both within and outside of EFI. She is a non-voting member on the EFI Steering Committee.
Jasper is a recent ecoforecasting convert. Jasper spent a decade working for a government agency supporting Long Term Ecological Research which helped him see the value in automating the pipeline from data collection to decision support and the necessary adaptive feedback loops. Jasper's most current projects focus on satellite remote sensing.
Former Steering Committee Members:
Antoinette Abeyta (University of New Mexico, Gallup)
Meghan Beatty (University of Florida, EFISA Representative)
Korryn Bodner (University of Guelph)
Carl Boettiger (University of California, Berkeley)
Chris Brown (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, retired; University of Maryland)
Nievita Bueno Watts (California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt)
Cayelan Carey (Virginia Tech)
Istem Fer (Finnish Meteorological Institute)
Michael Gerst (NIST)
Alistair Hobday (CSIRO)
Melissa Kenney (University of Minnesota)
Dave Klinges (University of Florida; EFISA Representative)
Hannah O’Grady (University of Notre Dame; EFISECA Representative)
Kayode Oshinubi (Northern Arizona University; EFISECA Representative)
Christy Rollinson (The Morton Arboretum)
Anna Sjodin (United States Environmental Protection Agency)
Kira Sullivan-Wiley (The Pew Charitable Trust)
Glenda Wardle (University of Sydney)
Alyssa Willson (University of Notre Dame; EFISA Representative)
Ethan White (University of Florida)
Jake Zwart (United States Geological Survey)
EFISA = EFI Student Association; in 2025, the name changed to EFISECA = EFI Student and Early Career Association