stephanie gripne

Stephanie Gripne's CV:

Stephanie Gripne's Biography: I have always loved the outdoors whether it be skiing, hiking, kayaking, biking, and most recently, hunting. My fascination regarding how people relate to their surroundings and allocate their natural resources was sparked at the age of seventeen when I wrote my first research paper documenting the beginning of the controversial Northern Rocky Mountain Wolf Recovery Program. I left Idaho to become a wildlife ecologist. For the first two years of school at Gustavus Adolphus College, I worked independently as a computer consultant, troubleshooting and providing support for three computer platforms and participated on the college volleyball and golf teams.

After my sophomore year in 1994, I returned to the Intermountain West and fought 13 forest fires with the U.S. Forest Service (USFS). This experience was the most extreme case of mental and physical teamwork I have known. Immediately following the 1994 fire season, I began a fall internship with the USFS working with mountain goats and Wilderness projects. The internship and fire fighting experience reconfirmed my desire to pursue wildlife ecology. In January 1995, I transferred to University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point (UWSP) to complete my degrees in wildlife management and biology. I joined The Journal of Wildlife Management team. At that same time I worked on a project to develop a sampling protocol for measuring densities of the endangered Karner Blue Butterfly for a Habitat Conservation Plan. My experience at UWSP was capped with a 6-week summer field course working in five-person interdisciplinary teams.

Following graduation in 1997, I accepted a research position at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. I was one of six ecologists and economists attempting to model the hydrologic effects of converting Conservation Reserve Program lands into biofuels on the Minnesota River Watershed. Additionally, I collaborated with Dr Bill Hargrove on an independent project to create inductive and deductive habitat models for mountain goats in central Idaho using GIS, remote sensing, sighting data, and habitat classifications.

Throughout the past nine years, I have been involved in a variety of research and work experiences related to ecology and natural resources management. I have the opportunity to be a principal investigator, serve on several interdisciplinary teams, and contribute to multiple projects. Questions of temporal and spatial mechanics of vegetation have been an underlying theme throughout most of my experiences. Most recently, I have been involved in a plant-herbivore Cross-site Long Term Ecological Research Project. For my MS in Ecology at Utah State University, I investigated the effects of different-sized herbivores on plant species diversity across nine sites throughout the US and the Netherlands that represented the range of natural grassland productivity gradients.

I invite your comments, suggestions, and any other sort of feedback you would like to give me Stephanie Lynn Gripne.

Stephanie Lynn Gripne, Boone and Crockett Wildlife Conservation Program, School of Forestry and Conservation, University of Montana, Missoula, MT 59812, steph@compatibleventures.com