Liz (Baldwin) Olson

Liz Olson’s 2009 Vision Fellowship award enabled her to pursue a master’s in conservation biology at Antioch University New England. For her thesis, she used trail cameras to look at behavior and population characteristics of the North American River Otter on the Vineyard. This was part of a larger community-based project that examined the river otters’ role as sentinels for habitat and water quality. In spring 2011, Liz’s mentor, Luanne Johnson (2015 Vision Fellow) founded BiodiversityWorks, an Island nonprofit that focuses on shorebird protection and various other wildlife projects here on the Vineyard as well as involving and engaging the public and local schools. Liz is now assistant director of BiodiversityWorks. She and Luanne were awarded a 2015 Vision Fellowship to study Northern Long-eared Bat (NLEB) distribution, roosting and migration behavior on Martha’s Vineyard. Luanne and Liz collaborated with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, the USGS Cooperative Research Unit at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and Virginia Tech, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Mass. Fish & Wildlife, New York State Dept. of Environmental Conservation, among others, on this project.