Jessica Burnett

WORK HISTORY

EDUCATION

SKILLS

ABOUT JESSICA BURNETT

I am a wildlife ecologist with expertise in program management, program analysis, data science, and outreach and relationship development. At NASA, I play a key role as a subject matter expert on wildlife ecology and conservation and spearhead efforts to advance applications of Earth observations in the North America wildlife management community.# Scientific Background I am professionally driven by my interest to improve the relationships among science producers and science users to advance wildlife conservation and management. I am a well-rounded scientist with domain expertise in avian and invasion ecology, applied statistics, qualitative methods, and scientific programming. I earned a Ph.D. in Natural Resource Sciences from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and a M.Sc. and B.Sc. in Wildlife Ecology and Conservation from the University of Florida.# Breaking Down Barriers for Next Generation Scientists As a first generation college student, I had absolutely no idea what Masters or Doctoral degrees were, and was certainly unaware of the plethora of opportunities to contribute to environmental and wildlife conservation beyond what I had been exposed to (e.g, a park ranger or veterinarian). I strive to generate awareness of the range, unique, and exciting opportunities (like working at NASA!) to contribute to conservation as a profession, especially among those from traditionally underrepresented communities.# Scientific Programming I\'ve led and co-produced several scientific programming products, ranging from decision support tools for use by general audiences to developing new statistical methods and workflows for estimating animal population sizes and distributions. Most of my scientific programming portfolio can be found at my GitHub. Although I proudly work as an Open Scientists, some models and code are private due to client confidentiality.# Personal Life I love playing volleyball, prefer edible gardens over lawns, and enjoy a regular dose of friendly competition through most sports and board, card or video games. Maybe some day I will complete a NYT Saturday puzzle without auto-check help.