Birding Staff Bios
Each and every issue of Birding is brought to you by, well, not quite a cast of thousands, but indeed by a squad of more than two dozen editors, reviewers, consultants, columnists, and designers. The production of Birding is very much a team effort, involving folks with varied interests and perspectives from all over the ABA Area. A major editorial goal for Birding is that the magazine serve as a forum and sounding board for the diversity of voices in the North American birding community, and our talented staff is a reflection of that diversity.
Paul Baicich is "Traditions" Department Editor. A writer, editor, and consultant, he is a former New Yorker, former ABA board member and staffer, and former airline ramp serviceman. His ornithological interests include shade-grown coffee, breeding biology, Alaskan birdlife, National Wildlife Refuges, and whatever might be his next ABA lifer.
Ken Barron is the advertising sales representative for Birding, North American Birds, A Birder's Resource Guide, and Net Connections (the commercial links page on the ABA's website). Among the rewards of his job are seeing the growth, and the successes, of new birding businesses that advertise in ABA publications.
Sheryl DeVore is "Dimensions" Department Editor for Birding. DeVore has been Chief Editor of the Illinois ornithological journal for 15 years and has also published three books on birds. She was recently named Suburban Journalist of the Year, and she writes a nature column for the Sun-Times News Group.
James Dinsmore is a Technical Reviewer for Birding, and Professor Emeritus of Animal Ecology at Iowa State University. Dinsmore has coauthored several books on Iowa birds and writes the summer season report for the Iowa-Missouri region for North American Birds. In 2006 he received the ABA's Ludlow Griscom Award.
Donna Dittmann is a Birding Technical Reviewer and a former member of the ABA Checklist Committee. An avid birder since childhood, Dittmann is at the Louisiana State University Museum of Natural Science, where she is collections manager and specimen preparator. She serves on the Louisiana Bird Records Committee.
Jon Dunn, a Technical Reviewer for Birding, has been a WINGS tour leader since 1977. He serves on both the AOU and ABA Checklist Committees, and is chief consultant for the National Geographic Society's Birds of North America. With Kimball Garrett, he coauthored Birds of Southern California and Warblers.
Ted Floyd is Editor of Birding. He is senior author of the forthcoming Nevada Breeding Bird Atlas (University of Nevada Press, 2007) and author of the forthcoming Smithsonian Field Guide to the Birds of North America (HarperCollins, 2008). Floyd has also authored more than 100 journal and magazine articles.
Jim Harris is a graphic designer in the Publications Department at the ABA. He is responsible for layout and design of the popular front-end and back-end sections of Birding: Your Letters, Editorial, Flight Path, Traditions, News and Notes, Photo Quiz, Sources, Dimensions, Tools of the Trade, and Book Reviews.
David Hartley is the ABA's webmaster, and has been particularly busy with keeping the Birding section of the website current. He is also co-owner of the Colorado-based high-end internet and print design firm, Viacarré. Hartley is especially interested in bird conservation, and he enjoys birding around the ABA Area.
Paul Hess is Department Editor for the "News and Notes" column at Birding. Hess, a retired newspaper editor, formerly chaired the Pennsylvania Ornithological Records Committee. He edits the Three Rivers Birding Club newsletter in Pittsburgh and is especially interested in the distribution and abundance of birds in western Pennsylvania.
Derek Lovitch is Department Editor for the "Tools of the Trade" column at Birding. A field biologist and naturalist with experience from Alaska to Florida, Lovitch now owns and runs the Wild Bird Center of Yarmouth, Maine, writes a birding blog on MaineToday.com, and works as a birding guide.
Bryan Patrick is the Director of Publications for the ABA. In addition to production responsibilities and guiding the vision for Birding, he oversees a number of other ABA publications, among them Winging It, North American Birds, The Big Day and List Report, and the ABA birdfinding guides.
Bill Pranty is chair of the ABA Checklist Committee and serves as technical reviewer for both Birding and North American Birds. He is currently renovating his home in Bayonet Point, Florida. Pranty authored A Birder's Guide to Florida (ABA, 1996) and co-authored Birds of Florida (Lone Pine Press, 2006).
Michael Retter leads tours in the Americas and Australasia for Tropical Birding and also serves as editor of ABA's bimonthly newsletter, Winging It. Between tours, he bases himself in his native Midwest, where he paints, photographs, and writes about birds. Retter's intense interests in distribution and taxonomy (and grammatical pedantry) are put to work as Technical Reviewer and "Sightings" Department Editor for Birding.
Ed Rother is a graphic designer with the Publications Department at the ABA. He is responsible for the layout and design of the full-length feature articles in each issue of Birding. He also takes a lead role with the production of promotional materials and various occasional publications of the ABA.
Eric Salzman, Birding Book Review Editor, is a composer and writer, and pioneer of the new music theater in the U. S. and abroad (his world list exceeds 3,300). Salzman works with bird clubs and natural history societies in New York and writes extensively about birds and the environment.
Brian Small is the Photo Editor for Birding. He works as a full-time professional nature photographer, with birds as his specialty. He learned most of what he knows about birds and photography from his father, the late Arnold Small, a founding father of the ABA and its second President.
Macklin Smith, Birding Copy Editor, began birding in graduate school, discovering in its serenity an intense focus and obsession. Attuvian, seafarer, and frequent flyer, he has seen many species in the ABA Area. Smith teaches poetry at the University of Michigan, and has published a book of poems, Transplant.
David Sibley is the author and illustrator of the fabled Sibley Guide to Birds, along with the Sibley Guide to Birdlife and Behavior. David has also written and illustrated articles for Birding and for North American Birds, as well as for a variety of regional books and other publications.
Kei Sochi is the cartographer for Birding. She is also the Geographic Information Systems (GIS) manager at the Colorado Field Office of The Nature Conservancy. Her favorite birds are the charismatic and naughty corvids. However enchanting these birds are, though, she is first and foremost an avid birdwatcher watcher.
Noah Strycker is Associate Editor of Birding. Strycker studies Fisheries & Wildlife Science and Art at Oregon State University. He received a prestigious 2006 Udall Scholarship and was named ABA/Leica 2004 Young Birder of the Year. His bird photographs, artwork, and articles have appeared in regional and national publications.
David Wilcove is an Editorial Consultant for Birding. He is a professor of ecology, evolutionary biology, and public affairs at Princeton University. Before joining the Princeton faculty, Wilcove worked for The Wilderness Society and Environmental Defense. He enjoys watching birds around the world (but not large gulls at landfills).