About Shaye's Work
Shaye is the Climate Science Director at the Center for Biological Diversity in San Francisco. She is interested in understanding the impacts of climate change on wildlife species and ecosystems, and securing science-based protections for species from climate change threats through new applications of legal and policy tools. Her work at the Center has focused on applying the U.S. Endangered Species Act to protect wildlife threatened by climate change through listing petitions and climate-informed recovery plans and critical habitat designation, including protections for corals, Arctic ice seals and the Pacific walrus, and high-elevation species such as the American pika. Shaye holds a PhD in Ecology and a master’s in Ocean Sciences from UC Santa Cruz and a bachelor’s degree in Biology from Yale University. Her dissertation research examined the effects of current and future ocean climate change on the seabird Cassin’s auklet by pairing regional climate models with population models. During her graduate studies, Shaye worked with two conservation organizations--Island Conservation in California and Conservación de Islas in Mexico—to restore island ecosystems in Baja California through invasive species removal and extensive outreach to local communities. Prior to her graduate studies, she was a wildlife biologist with non-profit conservation science organizations and government agencies primarily on projects to protect endangered bird species.
