Summary
Many local, regional, state/provincial, and federal/national agencies challenged with transportation ecology projects often lack the capacity or dedicated expertise to adequately identify the need for, plan, and design projects, and monitor the effectiveness of completed projects, much less develop a suite of best practices. Partnering with universities engages complementary expertise to good advantage and provides a mechanism to support the research, planning, design, in-depth and long-term monitoring of projects and strategies in transportation ecology. These partnerships enable science-driven studies to identify transportation ecology challenges and evaluate different practices and processes to inform applied management decisions. In turn, agency funding and project needs provide university faculty and their students research opportunities with real world-challenges in transportation ecology, planning and design, thus supporting a network of future transportation ecologists and planners.
Participants in this training will learn about benefits and challenges with agency-university partnerships. Presenters will cover important steps in developing partnerships, potential funding sources, elements of contracts, and data sharing agreements, illustrated through different perspectives. Case studies will provide examples of these points, and presenters will provide guidance for initiating and nurturing this fruitful relationship. Participants will learn through example and discussion, leaving better equipped to identify opportunities and actions to initiate or strengthen a partnership for their university or agency.
Organizers and trainers
Deborah Wambach is the Wildlife Coordination Bureau Chief, Wildlife Division of Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks. Deb spent the first 26 years of her career as a transportation ecologist/biologist for the Montana Department of Transportation. She is past ICOET Chair and a long-term member of the ICOET leadership team. She will cover types of money available from state DOT and Fish & Wildlife agencies, kinds of projects that university research would benefit, and essentials of contract agreements.
Kristina Ernest, Professor of Biology at Central Washington University, has conducted monitoring and research on wildlife crossings and connectivity along an interstate highway in collaboration with Washington State Department of Transportation for the past 15 years. She will cover aspects of pre- and post-construction monitoring and research on wildlife crossing structures, evolving partnership roles and relationships, and the involvement of students, using examples from the I-90 Snoqualmie Pass East Project (Washington)
Additional Trainers
Daniel Smith, Ph.D., A.I.C.P., is an assistant research scholar in the Center for Landscape Conservation Planning, School of Landscape Architecture and Planning at the University of Florida. He is former chair of the National Academies Transportation Research Board Standing Committee on Environmental Analysis and Ecology and a member of the USFWS Florida Panther Recovery Program’s Sub-team on Transportation Issues.
Fraser Shilling, Ph.D. is director of the Road Ecology Center at UC Davis and lead organizer for ICOET. He is a member of various federal and other committees and has partnered with state and other agencies for most of the last 25 years. He will share lessons learned from various agency-academic partnerships over the years.