The ARIES team

Ferdinando Villa

Ferdinando is a theoretical ecologist and computer scientists who always loved to study natural systems as well as the mechanisms through which the metaphors originating in human and computer languages affect the making and development of science. He holds a Ph.D. in theoretical Ecology from the University of Parma in his native Italy, and had a long parallel career as a scientific software designer and engineer. His research on high-performance computer simulation and mathematical modeling applied to community and ecosystem ecology earned him collaborations with UNESCO, the Italian Ministry of the Environment and the South Pacific Applied Geoscience Commission. After working in most fields of Ecology from theoretical Island Biogeography to spatially-explicit decision analysis, he came to the Gund Institute for Ecological Economics initially with mixed feelings (that "economics" word...) and soon discovered the joys and pains of interdisciplinary research, which he now loves, although he finds it a challenge (and a responsibility) to maintain scientific depth unaltered in face of the greatly increased breadth. He likes to say that whereas most ecologists spend their careers seeking answers, a lot of important work remains to be done on the questions, and concentrates on issues of semantics in ecological research. As a result of that, his research now focuses on conceptual frameworks and software infrastructure for natural system data and system modelling. He has collaborated with various international institutions and governments on environmental assessment methods, and in between his main projects on integrated modelling and environmental valuation, he still manages to sneak in some research in basic ecology, protected areas planning, and related fields. He is the author or coauthor of 110+ scientific publications and a number of major open source software packages; he has been the recipient of several million dollars in federal grants, mostly from the U.S. National Science Foundation and the European Union. He is pictured here with his favorite specimen of his favorite species.

Sergey Krivov

Sergey graduated in Mathematics from the University of Novosibirsk, Russia. After postgraduate studies in logic, philosophy and finally, computer science he received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from the Intercultural Open University, the Netherlands, for his work on agent based simulation and qualitative definitions of organization in complex systems. Sergey is working on visualization models for the languages of Semantic Web and on developing the GrOWL software. Sergey still has some interest in problems of complexity and organization, his main field of research is Knowledge Representation, more specifically ontologies. He is interested in semantics of visual languages and in formal reasoning about actions and processes.

 

Gary Johnson

Gary Johnson is a graduate student in Computer Science at the University of Vermont, who enjoys hacking away at obscure device driver code almost as much as spinning on his head and trying to figure out how to balance his body weight on his elbow. On the software end of things, he strives onward tirelessly,squashing bugs and deftly dodging the quicksand pull of GUIs in his daily sorties into the wild lands of code development, and as an advocate for Open Source technologies everywhere, he is always ready at the drop of a hat to provide a dissertation on the importance of penguins and parens in improving human welfare in the modern age.

When given the option, Gary prefers to work from his trusty-dusty Linux From Scratch platform, wielding the mighty twin-paren-ed sword of the LISP language against the insectoid hordes, but as the need arises, he has been known to wage war under the various banners of Perl (!!), x86/MIPS assembler, C, C++, Java, Javascript, TCL, OCaml, PHP, SQL, and BASH, as well as the ubiquitous web technologies of XHTML, HTML, CSS, and the ever-immanent DOM. In his down time, he can usually be found playing Linux sysadmin and studying up on any piece of CLI software he can get his hands on.

Unlike the disorganized little beasties that he fights, Gary graduated summa cum laude from Marlboro College in 2004 with his B.S. in Computer Science, focusing on the development and application of Open Source GIS software for landscape mapping and wildlife monitoring.  Since then, he has continued his work hacking the planet at the University of Vermont's Ecoinformatics Collaboratory, sailing the high seas of ecosystem service assessment and valuation with the infamous eco-pirate F. Villa, fishing with neural nets, logicking with great gusto (and Russians!), and trying to organize points in high-dimensional space into funny-shaped boxes.

When not armed for battle in a ThinkGeek shirt, he can be found tracking mammals and interpreting bird calls in the frozen mountains of Southern Vermont (or more recently along the city streets of Burlington), building fires with his bow drill, and adding to his botanical catalogue of native wild plants. His fellows are still waiting anxiously for the day when he will discover how to plug his computer into a tree and disappear into a snow-covered hermitage.

Marta Ceroni

Marta is a forest ecologist who gained her PhD from the University of Parma, Italy.  She carved and exciting niche for herself, working at the intersection among information technology, ecological economics, ecology, and decision making. She is responsible for ecological knowledge modeling, coordinating the various components of the ARIES project, and mediating contacts with existing and new partners. Her research and teaching at the University of Vermont focus on developing and using ecosystem service assessments to inform land use and conservation planning, policy making for sustainability, environmental compensations, and community development. She recently completed two projects in Romania to assess the economic benefits of protected areas and the potential to establish payment mechanisms for ecosystem services. She regularly teaches a course on ethnobotany that links plants, culture, ecology, and economics. Besides being excited about forests and biodiversity, she is passionate about herbal medicine, Irish step dance, Argentinian tango, playing the piano accordion, and creative writing.

Kenneth Bagstad

Ken is a PhD student in Ecological Economics at the Gund Institute, University of Vermont. He completed his M.S. from Arizona State University in 2002. For his master's research, he studied the conflicts between groundwater pumping and ecosystem health of the San Pedro River in southeastern Arizona, focusing specifically on riparian plant communities. Before coming to UVM, he worked as an environmental consultant in Chicago, Illinois, and was active in restoration of native wetland, prairie, and savanna ecosystems in the Midwestern U.S. He has also studied tropical plant taxonomy in Central and South America. Ken's research interests in ecological economics include valuation of natural capital and ecosystem services, alternative measures of social welfare (e.g., GPI), and the ecological and economic impacts of urban sprawl. Ken also received a B.A. in botany and environmental studies from Ohio Wesleyan University in 1999. In the ARIES project, Ken is responsible for building knowledge maps for the provision and usage side of ecosystem services, based on expert opinion, synthesis of knowledge from the literature and on focus groups of experts.

Joshua Farley

Joshua is an ecological economist at the Department of Community Development and Applied Economics and Gund Institute. He received his undergraduate degree in Biology from Grinnell College in 1985, his Master in International Affairs and a Certificate in Latin American and Iberian Studies from Columbia University's School for International and Public Affairs in 1990, and his Ph.D. in Agricultural, Resource and Managerial Economics from Cornell University in 1999.

From 1996-1999, Joshua taught ecological economics at the School for Field Studies, Centre for Rainforest Studies (CRS), serving as program director for his final year. While at CRS, he conducted field research in collaboration with community stakeholders and students applying ecological economics to local environmental problems. Specific projects focused on the valuation of ecosystem services from riparian forests for local dairy farmers, regional communities and international society; cultural values and ethnoecology; and local, regional and global values of various approaches to forestry.

Joshua's major research interests include mechanisms for allocating resources under local control and national sovereignty that generate global public goods, developing transdisciplinary case study approaches to environmental problem solving as an educational tool, ecological restoration of rainforest ecosystems, economic globalization, ecosystem valuation, watershed management, and international development. In the ARIES project he is responsible for addressing economic valuations taking into account scarcity of natural capital, critical ecological thresholds, and resilience of ecological systems.

James Pittman

James is the Managing Director of Earth Economics responsible for managing strategic priorities, finances, staff, programs as well as public and private sector consulting projects. Previously he spent several years as a Senior Consultant serving clients such as the Washington State Department of Ecology, the King Conservation District, the King County Department of Natural Resources and Parks with a focus on ecosystem service modeling, sustainability indicator assessment and stakeholder engagement facilitation. He holds a MSc degree with distinction in ecological economics from the University of Edinburgh, completing a dissertation on participatory assessment of water resource management strategies. He has over a decade of sustainability consulting experience with non-profit, education, business, government and public utility clients at local, regional and national scales and currently teaches applied systems thinking and dynamic modeling at the prestigious Bainbridge Graduate Institute in the Sustainable Business MBA program.