"Of all the pollution we face, light pollution is perhaps the most easily remedied". - Yerlyn Klinkenborg
"If people sat outside and looked at the stars each night, I'll bet they'd live a lot differently."
- Bill Watterson
IDA Oregon Board Members
A 35-year career as an earth scientist in research, development and exploration for minerals and petroleum… specialist in remote sensing, image processing, visualization and statistical techniques… previous volunteer work creating video documentaries – Saving Open Space, Living on the Urban Edge, The Story of La Habra Heights… now measuring the level of light pollution in Central Oregon – a step toward reducing light pollution and recognizing our very dark areas too!
Seeing the stars at night is one of Cathie's greatest joys!
She brings her career in business management and financial skills to our chapter's efforts. Her community experience includes work with the award winning, all volunteer "Friends 4 Expo Transit," which, successfully liaisoned the opening of a light rail transit line across Los Angeles to the beach in Santa Monica by connecting neighbors and neighborhoods along the way. Now, her passion is with connecting communities and businesses to recognize and reduce light pollution.
Mary is a career biologist and conservationist and serves as Portland Audubon's BirdSafe and Lights Out Campaign Coordinator. She has long loved the night sky, but came to dark sky preservation and advocacy work through the study of bird window collisions and factors contributing to this critical conservation issue, including light pollution. She has a deep appreciation for Oregon's magnificent night skies and is committed to working to preserve them both for people and wildlife. Mary is dedicated to efforts to make urban environments more hospitable to wildlife and helping people connect to nature, both day and night. She spends her free time gardening, beekeeping, bird watching, dragon flying, mushroom hunting and escaping into wild spaces.
Retired after 30 years as an electron microscopist in the semiconductor process development team at Intel, with interests spanning the scale range from nanometers to light-years. An amateur photographer since childhood, an amateur astronomer since a couple of decades ago, a dark skies advocate since helping organize the 2016 Gorge Night Sky Conference, an IDA Delegate since 2018 AGM/ALAN. Currently working with Unihedron to make night sky measurement methods reported in the scientific literature accessible to dark sky advocates. Chronically in pursuit of too many irresistible interests at once. Life is short, the universe in infinite.
A retired Geography instructor and world-traveler, Margaret discovered her love of Astronomy by standing under a very dark sky at the Oregon Star Party some 25 years ago. She recently completed six years as president of Rose City Astronomers and looks forward to even more nights under crystal skies with her 12" Dobsonian telescope. She has recently come to appreciate the healing that can come to our natural environment by darkening our skies at night, not just for astronomers but also for birds and bats, plants, oceans, night-reproducing animals, and entire ecosystems while also cutting down on energy use and global warming. She is pleased to be the most recent member of this Board and looks forward to continuing and helping to expand the excellent work the Board has already established.