Andrew Valand Email & Phone Number

Greater Los Angeles Area

Region 5 - Habitat Conservation Branch - CEQA Biologist - Land Acquisition - Renewable Energy ProjectsMember: - Wildlife Crossing Work Group - Small/Medium Mammal Taxa Team

Greater Chicago Area

Digitizing historic parcel data for Forest Preserve properties. Creation and input of data into ArcMap (georeferencing).

River Forest, Il

- Developed curriculum relating to local ecology and related issues being faced by ecologists.- Contributed to the planning, preparing, and running of special events throughout the county.

Rosemont, Il

•Worked in triage and processed patient specimens in a timely and accurate manner for individual laboratory testing and referred testing (both intra- and extra system) in accordance with department policies and procedures, regulatory and safety standards.

Greater Chicago Area

•Assisted a doctoral candidate on her PhD research using molecular techniques to define leaf-litter food webs. Daily activities included DNA extraction and real-time PCR.

Forest Park, Il

• Conducting research on restoration costs and ecosystem services for large urban conservation districts throughout the Chicago region.• Generating a database for ecologists and natural resource managers regarding operational information of large conservation projects in major metropolitan areas to further encourage collaboration among agencies.• Gathered information and contacts relating to relevant research topics in order to assist in establishing a research agenda for the Forest Preserve District.

Chicago, Il

• Wrote summaries of climate change research in the bi-monthly Chicago Wilderness Climate Change Task Force Newsletter.• Researched and authored a comprehensive ecological profile of the Kankakee River region in Illinois.

Contributed to the development of research methodology for the collection and extraction of soil and litter microarthropods as part of the RESTORE project aimed at comparing the ecology of lands under various management strategies within county and privately owned lands in the Chicago Wilderness.

• Researched innovative policies in developing renewable energy policy.• Analyzed various methods of data collection pertaining to sustainability planning by metropolitan areas around the world.

• Contributed the implementation of a long-term wildlife monitoring program to evaluate the presence/absence, status, and population trends of wildlife species on district land, as well as to evaluate the impacts on wildlife from district habitat management activities. Surveyed for an array of populations including amphibians, reptiles, birds, small mammals, to mesocarnivores.• In addition, assisted ecologists with various vegetation density and diversity surveys throughout the forest preserve districts.

• Worked on projects assessing habitat usages and diet of large and medium carnivores (mountain lions, coyotes and bobcats) in urban environments. Project involved trapping, using GPS, using remote motion-detecting cameras, photo analysis, conducting censuses of scat lines, using GIS to locate kill sites, driving 4WD vehicles, and data entry.• Analyzed the effects of habitat fragmentation/urban encroachment on the diversity and abundance of reptiles, amphibians, and small mammals. Duties consisted of pitfall trapping, animal handling, stream surveying, and taking biological samples such as claw and scale clippings.

Research assistant to Dr. Jill Mateo of the University of Chicago.• Contributed to a behavioral project studying kin recognition and mate choice in Belding’s Ground Squirrels in the Eastern Sierra of California. Work entailed behavioral observations, small mammal trapping, handling, radio telemetry, basic husbandry, phlebotomy, PIT tagging, and educating/interacting with the public.

Research assistant in the Tissue Culture & Monoclonal Antibody Core.• Daily cell culture work: production of cell pellets and supernatants upon requests from primary investigators, media preparation, maintaining a sterile work environment.• Creation of hybridomas, cloning and screening via ELISA of various cell lines for maximal antibody production.• Data entry and creation of databases cataloguing the viral stocks and frozen ampules of numerous cell lines.

Mupp, Environmental Planning & Policy

Earned a GSAV certificate in geospatial analysis of data.

Bs, Environmental, Population, Organismal Biology & Molecular, Cellular, Developmental Biology

Minor in Biochemistry