Playa Science Council

Pepper Trail (He/Him), Ashland, OR.

Pepper is an ornithologist, conservationist, writer, and photographer. He began watching birds as a boy in upstate New York and traces his incurable love of travel to a family trip to Mexico when he was twelve. He earned his Ph.D. in ornithology from Cornell University, and has studied birds around the world, from the rainforests of Suriname to the islands of Polynesia. He lives in Ashland, where he served for over 20 years as the ornithologist at the National Fish and Wildlife Forensic Laboratory until his retirement in 2021. He is involved in many regional environmental issues, especially the establishment and protection of the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument. Pepper received one of the first awarded residences at Playa, and has been a member of the Playa Board since 2012. He is a regular contributor to Jefferson Public Radio, the Jefferson Journal, and the Writers on the Range syndicated series. His poetry has appeared in Catamaran, Rattle, the Atlanta Review, and many other journals. He is the author of three poetry collections: Flight Time; Cascade-Siskiyou; and An Empty Bowl.

Karen Shimamoto (She/Her), Alturas, CA and Reno, NV

Karen is a fiber enthusiast and follower of natural resources and agriculture in the eastern Sierra Nevada, eastside Cascades, and the High Desert of California, Nevada, and Oregon.  She is a member of the Reno Fiber Guild. The connection of art and science that Playa facilitates for rural, urban and Tribal perspectives will be an exciting new venture for her. The science of landscape, water, wildlife and fire within “the eastside ecosystems” is special and unique. Playa is part of the community within the Fremont-Winema National Forest, where Karen enjoyed her past role as Forest Supervisor. Karen also brings an agriculture perspective to the desert landscape from her family’s organic beef and hay ranch in Modoc County.

Walt Anderson (He/Him), Prescott, AZ.

Walt is an accomplished author, wildlife artist, photographer, lecturer, and expedition guide who taught environmental studies courses for 27 years for Prescott College in Arizona. He is a pioneer of ecotourism with experience around the globe. Since retiring from Prescott College, he continues to teach and reach out through his photographs, paintings, and writing on a daily basis. As a well-rounded naturalist, he feels that interpretation is his calling. He is on the boards of multiple conservation NGO’s that work from local to international levels. Currently residing in Prescott, Arizona, Walt has fond memories of living for years in Eugene and working several times as a wildlife biologist at Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in eastern Oregon. His residency one summer at Playa reinforced his love for the ecosystems of the Great Basin and his passion to integrate art and science, in tune with the mission of Playa.

Jim O’Connor (He/Him), Portland, OR.

Jim O’Connor is a Pacific Northwest native long interested in the processes and events that shape the remarkable and diverse landscapes of the region. Following this interest with a Geological Science major at University of Washington and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees at University of Arizona, he has spent most of the last 30+ years with the U.S. Geological Survey in Portland, Oregon, focused on understanding and describing the geology of the U.S. Pacific Northwest.
Jim has participated in multiple residencies and special programs at PLAYA over the last decade, immensely benefitting from interaction and collaboration among the diverse scientists and artists that create the special environment within the special setting of PLAYA.

Dana Reason (She/Her), Corvallis, OR.

Dana Reason is a Music Assistant Professor – Director, Contemporary Music Industry, Ecampus at Oregon State University.is a Canadian-born composer, music supervisor, producer, recording artist, and educator.  Reason recently co-produced Cinema’s First Nasty Women Compilation Soundtrack Vol. 1 (Kino Lorber, Aug. 2023) with Grammy award winning musician, founder and artistic director of the Berklee Institute of  Jazz and Gender Justice, Terri Lyne Carrington. This soundtrack  features 18+  diverse female composers written for the 4DVD (Cinema’s First Nasty Women) of 99 archival films (2022). Reason was also the arranger for the award winning Reconstruction: America After the Civil War” (PBS). produced by Henry Louis Gates (PBS, 2019).  Additionally, as a film composer, arranger and performer, she contributed music to: Pioneers of African-American Cinema;  Birth of a Movement (PBS); and Alice Guy Blachet Vol.2 (Kino Lorber).

Ron Larson (He/Him), Klamath Falls, OR.

Having grown up along the Oregon coast, Ron wanted to be a marine biologist. After completing a PhD in marine sciences in Canada, he did a post-doc in Florida, where he used submersibles to study deep-sea animals. Later, he took a job with the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) in Georgia, then Mississippi, and finally moving to Klamath Falls, Oregon, where he retired in 2014. His work with the USFWS focused on water development and endangered species, work that was both challenging and interesting. His research interests include the ecology of waterbirds, especially shorebirds using Great Basin saline lakes, as well as rails and bitterns in marshes. Ron recently completed a decade-long project and writing a book about the natural history of Lake Abert, a salt lake located in southcentral Oregon that attracts thousands of waterbirds every summer. He is currently working with a group of scientists studying the effects of climate change on Great Basin lakes. His hobbies include birding, photography, and travel. Ron is a board member of the Oregon Lakes Association and the Klamath Basin Audubon Society. He and his wife Kathy live in Klamath Falls, Oregon. Ron states: ” Playa’s unique focus on the “intersection of art and science,” and its prime location at the northwestern edge of the Great Basin, makes Playa well suited to immerse creative artists and scientists in that landscape, which remains one of the least known and under-appreciated areas of North America.”

Jerri Bartholomew (She/Her), Corvallis Oregon

Jerri is a fisheries microbiologist and glass artist. with an interest in exploring the intersection of these disciplines. As a microbiology professor at Oregon State University, she and her team researched diseases that affect wild Pacific salmon populations, focusing on how human alteration of ecosystems and climate change affect disease interactions. A long-term project in the Klamath River integrates research and monitoring to predict disease effects on salmon both before and following removal of four dams on that river. Since retiring, she continues to direct the Aquatic Animal Health Laboratory, but increasingly spends time coordinating an Art-Sci Interdisciplinary Fellowship for students at Oregon State. This fellowship challenges students to explore how creative artistic practices can not only illustrate, but inform science.