| CLOUD RIDGE STAFF & GUEST LEADERS
 Audrey Benedict is the Founder and Director
of Cloud Ridge Naturalists and the Publisher of
Cloud Ridge Publishing. Her passion for geology
and biology inspired a 45-year love affair with
high mountains and the global ocean realm that
has taken her from the Arctic to the Antarctic, as
well as up and down the North and South American
Cordillera. Audrey is the author of several
books, including The Naturalist’s Guide to the
Southern Rockies: Southern Wyoming, Colorado,
and Northern New Mexico and Valley of the
Dunes: Great Sand Dunes National Park and
Preserve, the latter a collaborative effort with
photographers with photographers Wendy
Shattil and the late Bob Rozinski. Her most recent
book, with coauthor Joe Gaydos, is The Salish
Sea: Jewel of the Pacific Northwest, a Nautilus
Gold Award-winning conservation book designed,
produced and financially supported by Cloud
Ridge’s publishing team and private donations.
Audrey serves on the Board of Directors for the
SeaDoc Society. She divides her time between her
Colorado mountain home near the Indian Peaks
Wilderness Area and her tiny off-grid retreat on
Frost Island in Washington’s San Juan Islands.
 Dr. Geoff Hammerson lives in Port Townsend,
Washington and this California native admits that
he has lost his heart to the Pacific Northwest. He
recently retired after a multi-decade career as
Senior Research Zoologist for NatureServe. Geoff
is the lead biologist on Cloud Ridge’s naturalist
team and has helped guide our field discovery
programs since the early 1980’s. He is the author
of the field guide Amphibians and Reptiles in
Colorado, as well as Connecticut Wildlife. With
co-author Audrey Benedict, Geoff is currently at
work on a book about the Pacific Flyway, the
migratory bird “highway” that extends from
Arctic North America to Tierra del Fuego. He is
an extraordinary observer of the natural world and
is always adding new dimensions to his natural
history expertise. Geoff is a great instructor and
teaches field courses in biology and ecology at
Wesleyan University and other institutions
 Wendy Shattil is a rare species indeed—a full
time professional nature photographer. She
and her late husband and partner, Bob Rozinski,
worked individually and as a team for more than
30 years until Bob’s death in 2016. They are
known world-wide for their award-winning
images and for the breadth of their work as
environmental photographers of endangered
species and at-risk ecosystems throughout North
America. Fellows of the International League of
Conservation Photographers, Bob and Wendy
produced twelve books together, and their images
have appeared in National Wildlife, Audubon,
Nature Conservancy, BBC Wildlife, Nature’s Best,
National Geographic, and many other publications.
Wendy serves as the Project and Image
Director for Cloud Ridge Publishing and brings
her expertise and critical eye to everything we do.
Dedicated to developing new ways of illustrating
key conservation issues, Wendy is a superb
teacher and generous in sharing her expertise. To
see more of their joint photographic work, visit
her website: www.dancingpelican.com
 Dr. Joe Gaydos lives on Orcas Island and is a
wildlife veterinarian and Chief Scientist for the
SeaDoc Society, a nonprofit science-based marine
conservation program of the UC Davis Veterinary
Medicine/Wildlife Health Center. Joe has focused
SeaDoc’s research efforts on the ecosystem-level
challenges facing the Salish Sea and has worked
to improve management and policy decisions
regarding the stewardship of those resources.
He’s coauthor, with Audrey Benedict, of the
award-winning book The Salish Sea: Jewel of the
Pacific Northwest and is currently working on a
children’s version of the book. Joe has published
extensively on marine wildlife health issues
emphasizing species as harbor seals, river otters,
and killer whales. His profound passion for
connecting people to the magic and vulnerability
of the marine world is legendary!
 Russel Barsh spent his Long Island boyhood
beach combing and fossil hunting. As a doctoral
student in paleontology at Harvard, he was
mentored in multidisciplinary studies by the late
Loren Eiseley and Stephen Jay Gould. His friendships
with Native Americans opened his eyes to
new science challenges, convincing him to get a
law degree and defend the environmental integrity
of traditional cultures. Russel taught at the
University of Washington and helped develop its
American Indian Studies Center. He served as an
7
advisor to United Nations agencies on indigenous
and peoples living in sensitive ecosystems, eventually
establishing the UN’s Forum on Indigenous
Issues. Russel co-founded Kwiáht (Center for the
Historical Ecology of the Salish Sea) at the urging
of his longtime friend and Samish Tribal leader,
the late Ken Hanson. Kwiáht means “a clean
place” in the Native American language of the
Central Sound—a one-word mission statement
embracing the use of science to inform and
promote stewardship of cultural and biological
resources in the San Juan Archipelago.
 Madrona Murphy is a native Lopezian, whose
love for the San Juan Islands eventually brought
her back to Lopez Island after earning a degree
in botany and political science at Reed College.
With a special interest in plant genetics, she
worked initially as a technician at the University
of Washington’s Center for Cell Dynamics at
Friday Harbor Laboratories before establishing
and managing Kwiáht’s genotyping laboratory.
Madrona uses her knowledge of how indigenous
peoples used the land and shaped the ecosystems
that we see today in designing restoration work.
Her genetic population studies include work on
local salmon, coastal cutthroat trout, camas, and
the rare Island Marble butterfly.
Marilyn Hailbronner’s drawings—rendered in
pen and ink, scratchboard technique, and color
wash—grace Cloud Ridge’s brochure and
website. Her work as a naturalist artist is a
reflection of her love for natural history and
conservation. To see Marilyn’s artwork visit: www.wildinkwell.com
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