Email:
bottens2@illinois.edu
Research and Professional Interests
Alaina is an undergraduate student in the department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She currently works under the direction of Dr. William Stewart and doctoral student Nicole Evans. In her second semester working with the Park and Environmental Behavior Research Lab, Alaina continues her work as an undergraduate research assistant with the Community Resiliency and Grassland Protection Project. Her current interests lie in wildlife conservation, restoration ecology, and in developing a greater connection between the human and nature dimensions of environmental protection, research, and policy.
Email:
baojianma@bjfu.edu.cn
Research and Professional Interests
Baojian is a Fulbright Visiting Research Scholar in the department of Recreation, Sports and Tourism at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His research proposal is Roles of Local Knowledge in Community-based Conservation of American Landscapes under the advisement of Dr. William Stewart. Presently, he works as an associate professor in the department of Tourism Management at Beijing Forestry University, China. His research interest mainly focus on tourism foundamental theory, conservation and recreational use of national parks, place attachment, global environmental problem etc. Baojian received his B.S. in Architecture from Xiamen(Amoy) University, from Beijing University, he received his master degree in Philosophy of Science & Technology and doctor degree in Historical Geography.
Email:
bleits2@illinois.edu
Research and Professional Interests
Ben Leitschuh is a PhD student working in the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences under the co-advisement of Dr. Carena van Riper and Dr. William Stewart of the Department of Recreation, Sport, and Tourism. His doctoral research focuses on understanding the individual, social, and cultural components that influence the tolerance of wildlife conflict, particularly around protected areas. Ben has over a decade of experience as a professional urban planner and environmental educator. He holds a Master of Urban Planning and Policy degree from the University of Illinois at Chicago where his research examined the costs and benefits of living with coyotes in the urban environment. Ben earned his BA from the University of Iowa where he concentrated in environmental studies through the Department of Geography. When not working on research, Ben enjoys spending time with his wife and two children as well as traveling the world to document wildlife with his camera.
Email:
johnrs2@illinois.edu
Mobile phone:
901-786-4457
Research and Professional Interests
John is a doctoral student in the department of Natural, Resources, Environmental Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He currently works under the direction of Dr. William Stewart and is interested in research that focuses on sense of place. John, Dr. Stewart and various colleagues are in the process of authoring a paper dealing with how heritage narratives are utilized by communities on the rural-urban fringe to make sense out of landscape planning. John’s master’s thesis deals with how conservation organizations share knowledge high in ecological risk. The research for his master’s thesis is in conjunction with his research assistantship with the Prairie Research Institute where John was a lead role in developing an information management system for the Forest Preserves of Cook County. During his undergraduate education at Purdue University John’s studies focused on organizational leadership and communication.
Email:
brand@illinois.edu
Research and Professional Interests
Mindy is an M.S. student in the department of Recreation, Sport, and Tourism, concentrating on recreation. Under the advisement of Dr. William Stewart, she is interested in developing a better understanding of sense of place, especially as it relates to the restorative value of natural spaces. She is particularly interested in heritage interpretation and its capacity to create meaningful personal experiences.
Email:
shipley4@illinois.edu
Mobile phone:
913-233-6394
Research and Professional Interests
Nate is a doctoral student under the advisement of Dr. van Riper and Dr. William Stewart. The core of Nate’s research is understanding psychological factors in relation to the natural environment. He is particularly interested in examining the role of emotion in human behavior. He received his B.S. in Parks and Conservation Area Management from Kansas State University in 2015 and his M.S. in Parks, Recreation, and Tourism Management from Clemson University in 2017. Outside of the lab, Nate enjoys spending time with his wife, Hannah. He's also an avid bird watcher. You can learn more about Nate and his research at his website, https://www.nathanjshipley.com/. Additionally, you can contact him directly at shipley4@illinois.edu.
Email:
Nevans3@illinois.edu
Mobile phone:
630-201-1863
Research and Professional Interests
Nicole is a doctoral student in the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences at the University of Illinois. She works under the direction of Dr. William Stewart and is engaged in a research project which studies building rural community resilience in the context of protected grasslands. As a student of Dr. Stewart’s, Nicole is developing expertise in sense of place as a guide for conservation planning and specializing in qualitative research methods. Nicole has a master’s degree in Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences also from the University of Illinois and a bachelor’s degree in Anthropology and Sociology from North Central College. In her master’s program, she focused on human dimensions and completed a thesis which looked at the plurality of meanings staff and volunteers in an urban forest preserve district held for naturalness, along with knowledge production and decision-making in ecological restoration.
Email:
breiley@illinois.edu
Research and Professional Interests
Dr. Bryan Reiley is an Avian Ecologist who works at the Illinois Natural History Survey(INHS). Broadly, Bryan's work focuses on understanding the factors that influence wildlife-habitat relationships. In particular, he is interested in understanding the habitat selection process in birds and how habitat selection decisions influence fitness outcomes. Bryan is currently working on a project evaluating how temporal and landscape trends influence arthropod abundance and diversity using a long term data set collected by the Critical Trends Assessment Program at the INHS. Additionally, Bryan and Dr. Bill Stewart are working on a grant from the the United States Fish and Wildlife Service to investigate what factors are limiting the continuation and expansion of grass based agriculture, an important agricultural practice to grassland birds, in the Midwest.
Email:
shadavi2@illinois.edu
Research and Professional Interests
Sara holds a PhD in Landscape Architecture from the University of Michigan. She is currently in the MLA program in the Department of Landscape Architecture at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She is interested in urban residential and everyday landscapes, and her research focuses nearby nature and wellbeing. More specifically, she studies how planning and design-related attributes of the environment and proximity to nature may affect people’s wellbeing through neighborhood satisfaction and use patterns. Using an interdisciplinary approach, her work makes linkages between findings in environmental psychology, urban planning and design with the goal of providing people-oriented evidence-based solutions. These solutions are expected to be translated into applicable planning and design guidelines to help practitioners and decision-makers improve the quality of life in urban neighborhoods. Sara has been recognized as the Landscape Architecture Foundation’s 2018 University Olmsted Scholar for her efforts in research and leadership in the field.
Email:
shiqinz2@illinois.edu
Research and Professional Interests
Shiqin ZHANG is a Visiting Student in the department of Landscape Architecture at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She is currently working on Visitor Education and Experiential Learning on Greenways under the advisement of Dr. William Stewart. Presently, Shiqin is a doctoral student in the School of Hotel and Tourism Management at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. She received both her B.S. and M.S. in School of Tourism Management at Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, Guangdong, China. Her research interest mainly covers tourism management and planning, tourism anthropology; community tourism and community participation; tourism impacts and social space production; visitor education; greenway tourism and sustainability.
Email:
zzhan153@illinois.edu
Mobile phone:
2172006207
Research and Professional Interests
Zhiyi is a undergraduate student under the Natural Resources and Environmental Science. His major concentration is human dimensions of the environment. He works under Dr William Stewart and he is engaged in the research project which studies building rural community resilience in the context of protected grasslands.
